Worthy and Beloved

Brene Brown (http://brenebrown.com/) is one of the most exciting writers working today.  If you don't already know her books -- Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection -- or her TED Talk on "The Power of Vulnerability," then you should really check them out.

Brown is a "shame-researcher."  She researches shame.  For a living.

When I first learned about this, I thought, "Hmmm.  That's a strange thing to research.  Why would someone want to research shame?  Wouldn't that be, I don't know, depressing?"

What Brown has discovered in her research is that shame gets in the way of  living an abundant, wholehearted, free life.  So if you're interested in living an abundant, wholehearted, free life, then it makes an awful lot of sense to get to know what will get in your way.  And Brown says that shame is One-of-the-Biggies that gets in the way.

According to Brown, shame is "the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging" (The Gifts of Imperfection, 39, my italics).  Shame comes at us from all over our culture.  From media messages that tell us we're not good enough, that tell us what our bodies need to look like, to religious messages that tell people that God is against them rather than being for them, to peer pressure that makes us do things we know aren't good for us, and on and on and on.

All around us are messages that we are not worthy of belonging or of being loved.  We might be able to make ourselves worthy someday, but right now, we are not worthy of being loved.  We will only be worthy IF.  We'll be worthy IF other people say so ... IF we can get a good grade ... IF we can win the conference title ... IF we can impress the boss ... IF we buy that new pair of shoes ... IF ... IF ...

But Brown says that if "we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging" (Gifts of Imperfection, 23).  Right now.  Just as we are.  With all of our imperfections and flaws.  Right now.  We are worthy.  You are worthy of love and belonging.  Right now.

Brown's claim makes deep, intuitive sense to me.  It also resonates with the deepest truths of the Christian faith.  "You are my Beloved."  "Do not fear, I am with you."  "Even while we were sinners, Christ died for us."  That last one (from Romans 5:8) is particularly telling, I think.  Even though we were still sinners, Christ found us to be worth dying for.  Even though we were sinners, even though we were imperfect, even though we hadn't yet figured it all out, we were worthy of God's love.  God loves us that much.

But it can be difficult to accept this, to really believe this.  After many years in the church, it can be tempting to only hear the rather loud religious voices crying out, "Oh no, we are NOT worthy.  We have fallen short of the glory of God.  Like Psalm 22:6 says, We are all worms.  Do not believe this business about being worthy.  We are NOT worthy."

While these voices may be pointing to the truth that we are -- all of us -- sinners and imperfect creatures, they too often distort themselves into shaming voices that can make us doubt our belovedness.  They can become so very loud that we can no longer hear God's still and small voice telling us, "I love you as you are, right now.  I'm not waiting to love you some day in the future.  I love you right now.  Even though you are imperfect, even though you are sinful, you are worthy of my love just as you are, right now.  You do not have to do anything to make me love you.  I love you just as you are, and you belong to me.  No matter what anyone else tells you."

There are two truths at work here.  At the same time, (1) we are worthy of God's love and (2) we are sinful and imperfect and broken.  Both truths are fundamental.  If we only hold onto one of them, we will have a distorted view of ourselves.  But sometimes, it seems that the world can call such loud attention to our sinfulness, that our belovedness can be overlooked or pushed to the side.

Never let that happen. You are beloved.  Right now.  Just as you are.  You are worthy of being loved.