How I Broke My Shame Cycle

Spoiler alert: I didn’t break my shame cycle, but Someone else did.

Growing up in a devout Catholic home with a very loving Mom and Dad, I was used to cycles. You sin, you feel guilty, you confess to a priest, you sin again, feel guilty, confess again to a priest, repeat. When I began to understand just how imperfect I was and how often I messed up, I became very concerned that I would never be able to “get right” with God or make it to heaven, so long as that required going to confession with a priest after every time I sinned (and that only lasted up to the moment of my next sin).

I don’t know about you, but as hard as I try, I fall into sin all the time! It is a daily battle, and I have to constantly repent and ask God to help me each and every day. As a little boy, I believed that the more I sinned, the greater my eternal punishment would be, and as a result, I was scared of God. Not in a holy fear kind of way, but in an unhealthy, toxic way. When you live under a belief that you are only as forgiven as your last confession to a priest, that induces a fear of making mistakes. And we know that the Bible says, “Perfect love casts out fear;” so although I wouldn’t come to realize it until my adolescent years, I didn’t understand anything about God’s perfect love for me when I was a child and I felt tremendous guilt and fear.

When a family friend invited me to attend a youth retreat with their Protestant church, the speakers talked about how God wants a personal relationship with all of His children, and showed me verses in the Bible that made it clear that I could not earn my salvation (see some of those verses below). For the first time, I understood that God wanted me and not my perfection. In hearing that, all the shame of my sin and the fear of messing up miraculously lifted, and I experienced the Lord’s comforting love and grace.

At that moment, I decided to place my faith and trust in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I confessed that I was a broken sinner and that I knew I could not get right with God on my own. I had nothing to contribute but my need for God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness. I thanked God for sending His Son Jesus Christ to die and pay the debt for all my sins, past, present, and future, and then raise from the dead so that I would have eternal life with Him. I accepted His free gift to me. No longer did I carry this unbearable weight of needing to be perfect or go to a priest for confession after every mistake. I now had the Holy Spirit living inside me to help begin to transform me into the person that God wanted me to be. I could go directly to God with my prayers and my confession. That decision brought an unforgettable peace I will never forget.

By allowing the Holy Spirit to enter my life and become my Helper, I forsook a life of being led by guilt and fear and learned that I can walk in victory and joy because “neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor things to come, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

I am far from being perfect, but I now have tremendous peace in my life, even when I face the trials and tribulations that God can use to help me grow in my personal relationship with Him when I let Him. If you haven’t heard it before (like me years ago) or have been putting off God’s knocking on the door to your heart inviting you into a personal relationship with Him, I want to tell you today that you don’t have to live in shame or guilt, not knowing where you will spend your eternity.

There is Someone who loves you dearly and has already paid the ultimate price for everything you have previously done wrong and will do wrong in the future, and His name is Jesus Christ. The Bible says that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us. I personally know how constricting and soul-sucking it can be to live under guilt, fear and worry about where you will end up when you die. It is through accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior and learning the truth of the Bible that those burdens were lifted off of me. God wants to do the very same thing for you; will you let Him break the cycles in your life?

All you have to do is pray this very simple prayer: “Lord, I know that I am a sinner and that I am lost without you. I need your forgiveness. I know you can take me and all my past mess ups and turn it into something good. I believe that by your grace and mercy, You sent Jesus to us, who came and lived a perfect life on this earth, died on the cross to pay for my sins, was buried, and rose from the dead on the 3rd day. I receive your gracious gift of eternal life and the forgiveness of my sins which were bought and paid for by Jesus Christ Your Son. I have nothing to contribute to my salvation other than the need for your grace, mercy and forgiveness. Thank you for loving me and saving me. I ask that you send the Holy Spirit to come live in me, to begin to change my heart and transform me into the person You want me to be so that I can make a difference in the world around me. Help me to bring glory and honor to You in the way I act and the words I use with others. I pray all this in the precious name of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”  

I share with you the following verses in the Bible that led me to place my faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior:

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

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