There we go. That we all experience shame from one degree to another, and that scripture addresses shame. And so what I put together here, it's super long, but because like Katie mentioned, it's not like you're gonna go away from this weekend shame-free, that it is deep and wide, and we need many different ways to be able to address it. And so I'm just going through a lot of things, and it's more like a greatest hits. and to see where might the spirit be speaking to you about where you might need to address some shame in your own heart or if there's a sister that you're walking alongside and you want to figure out where might I be able to help them address the shame. And so this is the greatest hits and as a reminder too that yes, I might have had all this expertise or whatever and experience but what Paul calls us to is to be able to instruct, be able to counsel one another and that we're always having conversations. I'm guessing many of the conversations you had this weekend even were about people sharing struggles and trials and things like that. And so how do we speak into that with biblical wisdom? And so just the wisdom from above that is pure and peaceable. framework we've been speaking, or I've been using, from Paul Tripp's Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands. It's a classic biblical counseling book. And we talked about love and know, and then today we're supposed to talk about speak and do, but I totally miscalculated how long my testimony would take. I'm just going to jump a little bit into know. And I'll let you know what page as soon as we're there. But just a reminder that to know somebody is just very personal and intimate. And that it can be jarring if you don't know somebody. I mean, we've talked about how if you share a little bit of something and then somebody says, oh, you should just do this. then that person clearly doesn't know what's going on and our council cannot be wise if we don't know what's going on. And so just what I wanted to hit on really briefly today in far as no resources. Let me see. Just, again, really wanted to hit on interpersonal, what goes on inside of us. We'll talk about emotions in a moment. But just remembering that shame is very physiological as well as in our soul. And so it has this weight of shame in us. And in Joe 15, it talks about, ooh, what's going on? In Joe 15, it talks about filled with disgrace, I cannot lift up my head. And that just physiological response to the feelings of shame and just wanting to hide and disappear and go into ourselves and then just dread in the pit of our stomach and sometimes not even being able to put words to what we want to say or what we are thinking or what we're feeling. It's just this heaviness, this weight. All right, so we are on page 12, getting to know this individual. And one of the things that we get to know somebody, Trip said, when you bring well-constructed, creative, biblically-shaped questions to a person's life, you're doing more than getting to know them and uncovering where a change is needed. You are, in fact, ministering to that person. And so we wanna go ahead and ask questions. Hello, hello? That better? Okay, thank you. Feels loud, now I feel shame. So when you bring well-constructed, creative, biblically shaped questions to a person's life, you're doing more than getting to know them and uncovering where change is needed. Remember, we are not making people a project. we are in fact ministering to that person. And so we don't want to give an answer before we hear because it is our folly and shame. And these are all these different types of information that you can gather. We don't have time for that today. I wanted to hit really briefly on relationships. So the very bottom of page 12 where it says social, the bottom one I really wanted to hit on most of all, that sometimes we want to understand, Katie had talked about wanting to belong in different places, that if we know the values of the culture, that we wanna know what might influence their idolatries and shaming. For example, I might hypothesize if someone comes from an Asian American community that education might be a potential idol. And I'm not saying that education is bad. It's more when it becomes what we worship and that is our salvation and that is what is going to make our life good. That's when it becomes an idol. We want to consider spiritual categories, and that is towards the very middle of page 13, that when we are getting to know somebody, we wanna be able to do kind of a diagnosis. And Paul asks us, we urge you brothers, admonish the idol. So we have to know if they're idol or enrollee, and that's when we admonish. If they're faint-hearted, we want to encourage them. I was talking to a sister at lunch, and she was talking about how sometimes anxiety can seem like it's a sin, and that it should be rebuked, versus sometimes it is more of a faint-heartedness that needs to be encouraged, right? And then sometimes it is weakness, that we actually need to help them, that they're not able to. My church is really blessed to have a special needs ministry where we're able to minister to children with autism and issues like that and help them. And of course, we're supposed to be patient with them all. And then just a few under that. We want to remember that shame, with all of us, we wanna consider all three of these categories, that in some way, the person in front of you is imaging God. In some way, especially if there's shame, that there is pain from being sinned against and living in a fallen world. And there is an aspect of what are the ways that their thoughts, their words, their actions dishonor Christ and harm and injure others. And so that, and that's again why we need the gospel, that sometimes shame is appropriate, as Katie put it, but that should bring us to our Christ. So with shame, making sure we don't focus on one of these three, because that really dishonors the person. All right, now we want to jump to emotions. And I'm sharing about this because this is something that I got to observe over almost 30 years of counseling. And shame really can affect emotional experience, so what we're feeling in our body and what we're experiencing. and then emotional expression. So what does it look like on the outside? And so this is how we can get to know somebody. It's easy for me to think, oh, I feel this way, and this is everybody's experience. Coming back to that exercise we did about our sin shame, our misplaced shame. So being able to understand people, that there is a different level of awareness, that there are some people, they can automatically just know, oh yeah, I'm feeling shame, I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling whatever, you know. But if you come from a family where that was quashed down, or just you're not wired to feel things that strongly, you're just like in this fog of, I don't know, I feel something, or I just know I feel yucky. So know that there is a spectrum of being able to identify what it is that you feel. there is an intensity that I am one of those people who is wired to feel things pretty deeply. And so my anger, fear, whatever, is kind of in this spectrum. And then some people are more wired like this. I kind of think like John Piper and Tim Keller, you know. And part of that is just natural wiring. But for people, especially with shame, sometimes they shut it down. And the problem with feelings and shutting them down is a lot of times then they get bigger because they haven't been expressed, they haven't been heard. And part of the purpose of emotions is to express. And so know that Somebody crying in my office, for them, they might not cry in front of anybody else. But for me, I'm thinking, oh, she comes in here and cries every time. So we want to be careful about our assumptions about emotions and our assumptions about this person. experiencing or sharing their emotions. And those are the things that emotions can be affected by or influenced by. I come from a culture that you're not supposed to express it very much. But it was really good for me to work in the inner city because then I started to learn how to express, but I still don't express like somebody who's African American. I mean, and then that's, sorry, that's like a big kind of overgeneralization because there is a big, spectrum of how people experience but kind of the general duration. So some people like they get mad and they're over it. Some people get mad and they harbor it for days. So somebody can come in and be talking with you and have a feeling and then they walk out of the office like nothing happened and then others need help kind of putting themselves back together before they can go. their comfort, this tolerance with your own emotions. That for me, emotions are shameful. It was like a lack of self-control. It was, no, you're not supposed to have that. Part of Japanese culture can be like you're not supposed to impose your emotions on others. And so how comfortable is that person with their emotions? And then how comfortable are they with your emotions? That perhaps you are somebody that is super emotional and you're good with that. And for them it's like, oh my goodness, I don't know what to do with you. And so say that you're a counselor who tends to weep with those who weep. And for somebody who's shamed-based, not everybody, but they're like, oh my gosh, I'm so ashamed now, I just made my counselor cry. Or if they've been in an abusive situation, they're like, oh my gosh, I made my counselor cry, and now my job is to take care of them. That when you're oppressed, your job is always to take care of the oppressor. And so if you as a counselor start crying, all of a sudden the focus is on you instead of them. And then expression of emotions. Sorry, where'd my mouse go? Okay, here it is. The thing with shame, we hide, or sometimes we get really big. There have been people sitting in my room, they are either having a panic, or they are angry, or they are scared, and I could have no clue. And it's so amazing what people do to be able to hide, or just how they're wired. And so just I want you to be aware of those, to know a person, to know that people's experience, expressions, feelings towards emotions may be very different from yours. And so we want to be aware of our own assumptions about and our reactions to emotions. And Paul Miller wrote in A Loving Life, our inability to lament is particularly due to the influence of a Greek mind on the early church. And so Greek stoicism believed that emotions, so anything that interrupted the goal of a calm and balanced life, were bad. That the passionate person was the immature person. So I want you to consider right now even what are your assumptions about emotions? What are your assumptions about somebody who is strong, wears their emotions on their sleeves versus somebody who contains them? Again, working in the African American community, sometimes it would be scary for them if I didn't express enough because part of their history was people hiding things and then them kind of getting smacked around without no warning. And so they're always like, tell it to me straight. I want to know, you know, because my culture is more indirect. And they're like, stop beating around the bush. Just tell me what's going on. So just, again, being aware. How do you experience emotions? What are your interpretations of emotions? Can you start to see your emotions through your counselee's worldview? All right, I don't have a lot of time to talk about this. What we want to know, too, sometimes people are going to just throw a little bit out there to see what you do with it, almost like a, are you going to bite the hook? Like, are you going to tell them, oh, I was abused? Oh, you just need to get over that, you know? And so what are their, OK, you don't want to share something with me. I could understand that. So sometimes, counselees will come in and say, I don't want to share that with you. And it's, OK. Instead of like, well, you know, you're just being resistant, or do you really want counseling? Like, hmm, what are your fears of sharing? If you told me that, what might have happened? Or if you told people what you just are not telling me, what happened? How did they react? And so sometimes encouraging them to talk to me or tell me even in their heart work if it's somebody that has a history of shame, and I can just tell that they're not somebody that tends to be very open. I'll talk about heart work, but their assignment is to say, was there anything that you misunderstood? Or is there any time where you felt like I missed you or you felt ashamed in session that it's too hard for you to tell me in person? And know that sometimes there's something called a shame hangover. And this is basically this idea that when we share something that is vulnerable or shameful, that afterwards There is just this more, even like, I can't believe I told them that. I can't believe I went up there and told my testimony. And then all these thoughts of what I could have and what I should have said, and then now what is going to happen. And then back to the emotions, and then now it's going into the body. And so knowing that sometimes, especially with counseling, if they've come with you, come to you and shared something they haven't shared before, say, you know, you might feel some regrets afterwards, but please know I am like holding this with you, I am praying for you, and I see you as a sister, a fellow sister in Christ in me of the gospel just like me. And if you are, if you do have the shame over, shame hangover, how can I minister to you? How can, what are some things that you can minister to your soul should that come up for you? Let me see. And then those very related, that when we're talking about shameful things, that sometimes there's distress, especially if there is some sort of trauma in their history that's related to the shame. And so we wanna find out, do they yet know how to find refuge in God? And we'll talk about this more in the application section. In the midst of chaos, do they know how to be still and know that He is God? And then, are they Sabbathing? Do they know how to rest for restoration? Do they let God restore their soul? Because counseling or talking about shameful things is draining, and we need to be restored. All right, so the third, speak. Love is not just listening and knowing them well, but also being able to speak the truth in love. And like I talked about last night, some therapies can feel very good, feel very powerful when you feel understood, you feel vulnerable, and then that you are accepted and welcomed. One of the problems with that is it can leave the person dependent on a therapist for validation. In fact, I'm seeing a lady right now. She's been in and out of therapy for 26 years. One of my best friends, her husband has been in therapy for 20 years. And even speaking from a psychologist's view, that is just not right. That is not healthy. The goal of any good therapy, and even counseling, I was just sharing with somebody, my goal is for them to not need me, but to be dependent on Christ. But if they have been in some sort of secular therapy, sometimes they become dependent on validation and now want it from you. But again, we want our counselees to find their deepest security and comfort from Christ alone. And so Stuart Scott, one of my favorite professors, he wrote, your communication will reveal the kind of person you really are, because what comes out of your mouth is usually what's in your heart. And so if you truly desire to exemplify Christ, you will seek to become a good communicator. Everything that Christ communicated was holy, clear, purposeful, and timely. Now we all want to run out of the room and say, no, I'm not going to counsel now because I can't do that. But that's just where we're striving towards. In our Christian life, we are striving towards Christ. And we're going to fail. And praise God, we can never thwart God. We can never thwart his plans. But we do want to grow in our communication, which is what we're talking about now. And so as far as content, we are always going to speak the gospel in many ways, in different ways. There is a wonderful context, gospel and context presentation that I typically start a lot of my counselees out with, but always the content is helping them know God, behold his glory. And the more we know about them, the more specific scriptural truths that we can speak into them. We always want to give them hope. That shame can bring such a hopelessness, a darkness with it. Nothing is gonna ever be better. I am forever shamed. And letting them always know that God redeems. So the confidence that by integrating God's redemptive acts in the past with trusting human responses in the present, the faithful will experience the fullness of God's goodness both in the present and in the future. and we could have a whole conference on hope. There's many good books on hope. One of the things that Katie really hit on is that just this epic story of God's creation, rebellion, redemption, consummation. And I used to think that the Bible was all kind of these nice little pearls out there and I'd grab this pearl and I'd grab this pearl. But as I studied it more deeply, I just got to see this beautifully intricate woven necklace. And so related to shame, with creation, there was no sinner's shame, as Katie showed us. But rebellion and the fall, that rather than complete rejection to Adam and Eve's sin and shame, God loved them. Before sending them from the Garden of Eden, he did pronounce curses. but he also gave them the promise of a savior, and the promise of Satan's demise, and he covered their nakedness with animal skins. For redemption, Jesus Christ, he despised the shame at the cross, as we heard in some detail of Johnny Erickson Totter when I talked about Jesus hanging on the cross, and he despised the shame. And with consummation, this is where we are headed, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. Haiti talked about that separation. Now we are moving back into belonging. For he will wipe away every tear from their eye, and death will be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, behold, I'm making all things new. So again, sin and shame in the Garden of Eden led to separation from God, to brokenness, but consummation returns to dwelling with God again, and all things being made new. So now we want to talk about biblical change, that therapy has these different ideas of this is what makes people change. We want to know what the Bible says about change. And one of the things that was helpful for me was to really know these three phases of salvation, that I think there was this idea, especially as a youth, like, OK, I became a Christian, and now I can't do what God says, so I give up. And then I'm ashamed, and maybe I'm not a Christian. And so counselees with shame often struggle with this idea of progressive, not progressive in the liberal sense, but gradual sanctification. And that many of my counselees with shame, and I will admit even myself, that I feel shame that I'm not already glorified, but knowing that this is the process. This is a process that he who began a good work will be faithful to complete it. And so one of the things I like to go through at the beginning of Counseling 2 is Jeremiah 17, and it says, So notice that this trust is in man. He is like a shrub in the desert and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness in an uninhabited salt land. And then in the contrast, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. And notice this contrast again. He is like a tree planted by water and sends out its roots by the stream, but does not fear when heat comes, for as its leaves remain green. And it is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. And so this is my big picture. You have a QR code that puts to it, but this is basically my big explanation of biblical counseling, that they're going to have a presenting problem, and there's these trials and sin and difficulties in their life. And notice there's these complicating physical issues. We are an embodied soul. But then what we are on this left side here is that shrub, the tree in the desert, where the thorns are. And what we're looking at is what is their heart worship. And when we're trusting in man, we get these thorns. And this is what we're thinking. And these are the ways that we are reacting in the flesh. And the goal of counseling is to figure out what are their spiritual needs, and that the agent of change is always knowing the Triune Redeemer, beholding His glory. And then part of that also happens through what we call putting off. I'll actually go to that. Putting off being renewed in the spirit of your mind, sorry, and putting on the new. And then we become like the fruit, the tree that is planted by the streams of water. Is that in the right place now? Can you hear OK? Is that OK? Is it loud enough? So just letting them know this is how change happens in the biblical world. Again, your QR code on your thing will link to it. So you have this. And so letting them know that change comes from the transforming power of the gospel Katie talked about repentance and faith fueled by the word of God. There's something called the expulsive power of a new affection where our superior worship of God puts out worship of other things like our bodies. I mean, not like where it is more about what are we living for? and when we live for the Lord versus live for other things. And then humility, that invites grace. And so that is, I'm letting them know this is how change happens. It's not through venting, it's not through all these other ways that you might think that, or what secular therapy or even other types of therapy might tell you this is how you will change. And so the, Yeah, I put this in the wrong order. So part of what the Bible talks about how change is, is that we all have this old self. We have this total depravity. We have this indwelling thing that wants to worship ourselves. But that is the one that we put off, that belongs to our former manner of life, and is corrupt through deceitful desires. and then to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, and that is a big part of biblical change. And then we put on the new self, which is created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. And it's simple, but it's not simplistic. It really is a renewing of the mind in relationship to our God. And then I just wanted to say a really brief, one of the books that really ministered to me was Jerry Bridges' Trusting God. And it's not just, okay, just go trust God. And I knew the answer before I got to biblical counseling was trusting God, but I'm like, I have no idea how to do that. And so Jerry Bridges writes, trust is not a passive state of mind, it is a vigorous act of the soul by which we choose to lay hold on the promises of God and cling to them despite the adversity that at times seeks to overwhelm us. Sometimes we are overwhelmed, ladies. And so God's plan and His ways of working out His plan are frequently beyond our ability to fathom and understand. But we can learn to trust when we don't understand. And it is a progressive process, time, and renewing our mind again and again and again. It's not a one and done. All right, what else do we want to speak? Always, always a triune redeemer. A.W. Tozer said that what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. So when I first got to biblical counseling, I was like, oh, he withholds, or he is cruel. Look at all the things that happened to me. So we need to give our counselees and ourselves a fuller-orbed view of God, that he is this diamond with these infinite facets, and helping them to see more and more of those facets, and untangling the false perceptions of some of those distortions, because we know that they're there, and Katie talked about how the Satan distorts. That's the first thing he did in the Bible. Okay. And also sometimes a balance. So we could know his holiness and judgment, but miss his mercy and loving kindness. Or we could have this cold doctrine of sovereignty without the warmth of his providence. Obviously we're only gonna scratch the surface today. But regarding sin shame, that God gives grace and mercy to the repentant. And there is this Abba Father there. He is, yeah, that is who Jesus cried out to in the Garden of Gethsemane. I was the father of mercies and God of all comfort. I had the opportunity to fellowship with another sister. She shared just very briefly about her parents, but how hard it can be to have a concept of a loving father if you haven't had one. But if somehow you are able to develop that within your counseling and help them to see, separate out their earthly father from their godly father who is perfect and perfect in love. and for those who have been shamed, who have been violated by others, to know that God is against those who do evil. I don't remember exactly what hymn we sang, but a couple of the ones talked about God's vengeance, and it talks about beloved vengeance is mine. It's not just vengeance is mine, but beloved. I love you. I love you so much that I am gonna overcome evil for you, and that God will judge justly, and he is going to repay evil. So we need to know our Father is for us. The son in shame. So through his earthly ministry, he brought the gospel to the shamed, the oppressed, the outcast. You know, it was a bleeding woman, lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors. His crucifixion. He was shamed and forsaken on the cross that we might be reconciled to God. And then because of his ascension, we know that our great high priest, he sympathizes with our weaknesses as it talks about in Hebrews 4. He gives grace and mercy to us in our time of need when we draw near to his throne of grace. So can they know the son more? And then the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit who helps in our weakness, that he intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. And when I was doing a word study, the groaning in Romans 8, because we're exposed to the futility of this world, it is like this deep utterance that there is no, you can't even have words, just this, oh, that our spirit groans for us in our weakness. He is our helper and guider to truth because this misplaced shame comes at us. And so John 16, 4, 14 talks about him as the helper and guider to truth. All right, the enemy. I have said to counselees, and not in a shaming way, but a really gentle challenge, and you know the God that you're describing? He actually sounds a lot more like your oppressor, and he actually sounds a lot more like Satan right now than the God of the Bible. Satan would love to see it if you continue to see God this way. Are you willing to explore for a more accurate view of God? And this is the enemy and how he works. He is the father of lies and the deceiver. As Katie shared, he sowed doubt. He is the thief, murderer, destroyer. That in John 10, it's this passage about the sheep and the sheep know his voice, but then there is the thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy. So some of the things I'll be asking my counselees or even myself, if I'm noticing shame, fear, whatever else, Wait, is this from Christ, God, or is this Satan, my own heart, somebody oppressing me, these unrealistic standards from community, from society, everything else? And then it also says, after it says, the thief only comes to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that you might have life, and you have it abundantly. So if that voice is stealing and killing and destroying, then you know who's that voice it is. He's the ruler of this world. And then he loves to accuse. Even though he can't have our souls, if he can bring us down and make us less able to serve the Lord, he will do that. All right, now we need to know who we are. And Katie did a marvelous job with that as well. But I love this quote from John Stott. And he said, our self is a complex entity of good and evil, glory and shame, of creation and fall, so that we are created, fallen, redeemed, and we are recreated in God's image. And so, standing before the cross, we see simultaneously our worth and unworthiness, since we perceive both the greatness of His love in dying and the greatness of our sin in causing Him to die. And so knowing that sometimes, as Katie shared, sometimes shame is appropriate, and then other times there is actually ways that we glory God. I talked about this saint, sinner, sufferer, that we can't just see ourselves as sinner, but we can't just see ourselves as saint either. Knowing who we are in Christ, and again, Katie did a beautiful job with that too, but just this union that we have with Christ, all the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ, oh my goodness, that is a beautiful passage, and that when that wretched man that I am, who is going to deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to Jesus, God and Lord, I'm butchering it. But then the very next line is, and now there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And knowing this union that whoever abides in me and I in him, it is he that bears much fruit for apart from me that you can do nothing. And so being able to put off this identity of shame, this identity of abuse, this identity of oppression, this identity of whatever it is, and then being able to put on our identity with Christ, and that knowing in this union with Christ, we are being made more and more and more into his image. All right, so another part of the self is that we are two parts, that there is our worshiping heart and the spiritual, and this is a lot of what counseling addresses. And also, though, we are a soul embodied. And in Genesis 2-7, we read that the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. So we have a body that our soul gets to experience creation in. And sometimes because we talked about how emotions affect it so much. Oops, why is this? There's something missing. Okay, so actually that's later. So we have to know that we are an embodied soul. And we'll come back to how to address that. Right, do. So do is how we aid the counselee or ourselves in this process of knowing God, in this process of putting off, being renewed in the spirit of our mind, putting on. And so how do we help them run this Christian race? We want to be really careful of not making better Pharisees, whether of others or of ourselves. We want to make sure that, yes, what we know, but that should lead to worship of God. And then that worship of God leads to what we do. It isn't us just doing and obeying because that's what we're supposed to do. We, because of what Christ did, we respond in faith and obedience versus like the Pharisees, we do all those good things so that we will be seen as good before man and before God. So there's something called heart work, which is basically homework, but it focuses on the heart. And again, how are we gonna help them to know God, behold his glory, be renewed in the spirit of their mind when we're not? And then sometimes being able to ask them what might be hard about this if you have difficulties with God, if you haven't resolved shame from oppression, if you have to come up against the thing that you're ashamed against, What temptations might they come up with if they're having to face shame? If they have to face thoughts, memories, emotions, body responses? And then how can they actively seek and find ministry from God, themselves, and the church body? So we want the church to always come alongside, which is so different than secular therapy. All right, so now we're down to the counselor part, the application. And when I was meditating on different passages in shame as I prepared this presentation, Hebrews 1 through 2 came to be a really helpful structure. And this is not the order that I counsel, but it just has a lot of different elements of application and that every counselee is different. I do want to be really extra cautious in here, because what I'm saying up here, I would not directly say this how I would say it to a counselee sitting in front of me. And so it could feel really insensitive right now, especially if you're dealing with shame, oppression, something like that, and you sound, oh, she says just forgive. Please know that how you present it to somebody, how I'm presenting it to you now, it might sting a little if it's not the right timing and place. My forgiveness of my abuser took time. All right, so first, shame, as Katie shared, is isolating. I love how in the Hebrews 11, the great hall of faith, as well as throughout history, God has used imperfect people to show his glory. Many of the people in the Great Hall of Faith were oppressed and knew shame. And so, do they know people who have this great testimony? And it's not a perfect testimony, but it's a testimony that there are other people who have suffered what they are suffering now. All right, we wanna lay aside every weight. What weight are we carrying? What weight is our counselee carrying? What weight is our friend carrying? And we talked about this before, but in the midst of chaos, how do you be still? How do you cease striving? How do you stop for the purpose of knowing that he is God? And I love to take them through Psalm 46 and see how the psalmist knows that God is a very present help and refuge in time of trouble. And even though the earth gives way and the nations rage, how does it, then God still commands, be still. How do they learn to be still, cease striving for the sake of knowing God as God? And again, we talked about the soul. It's really helpful for counselees to know how anxiety and stress manifest in your body. especially how your nervous system responds. And so this is Jim Berg, a biblical counselor and professor, and he does, this is a link to his workshops, which is on YouTube. And if you click on these, there are some really good helps of what you can give to your counselee or even for yourself to understand, oh my gosh, what is my body going through when it is ready to just, run away when it's angry or when it's just shutting down. So that explains kind of the embodied piece of this. And then there's these exercises that he suggests that can help you to settle your body down, to know how to be still physiologically, because it isn't just, OK, be still, be still. Deep breathing is a really helpful thing that tells your nervous system to bring it down and that it's going to be OK. All right, a brief note on the body. How many of you are familiar with the body keeps the score? How many of you heard of it? As a psychologist, I want you to know that that book comes from a very socially, politically perspective than a scientific one. And people take it as not gospel truth, sorry, take it as scientific truth. But there is a book called Analysis of the Body Keeps the Score. And he basically does a rigorous scientific fact check of 42 claims that Vanderkilt made in the body keeps the score. And what he concluded, 23 of the 42 claims have in common that van der Kolk supplied zero data supporting them. So basically he said this, but he had no science backing it up. The other 19 claims were supported by either cross-sectional studies, which cannot indicate causality, meaning like this This was related to this, but that doesn't mean that this caused this. Sorry, that's like probably too there. But just know that it's bad, okay? Misrepresentations of studies, where he would like quote a study, but then the study had nothing to do with what he was saying. or commentaries that were basically sympathetic op-ed pieces. And so, in summary, the scientific evidence does not support his claims. And don't hear me saying that our bodies are not affected. I've been saying how much emotions play within our physical bodies. But what I am saying is that book has a lot of scientific untruths. And actually, I was looking at somebody else. It's more our brain keeps the score because kind of how our brain is interpreting everything, and then our body is the scorecard. So, again, our bodies are absolutely affected, but the stuff from van der Kolk is not scientific. Our brains are not permanently damaged by trauma. Our brains are very flexible, and then not to discount all the hurt that comes and the physiological aspects of trauma. but please don't trust his science. As well as the recommendations of his actual treatments, the scientific data backing them up are actually quite poor as well. All right. Sorry, my soapbox. I will drop my mic now. All right. Let us learn to rest for restoration versus escapism. Shame, I want to avoid. I don't want to feel what I'm feeling. I don't want to think what I'm thinking. My body gets exhausted from all that shame. So do I know how to rest? Do they understand the concept of the Sabbath? As Christian women, we're not good at that. We like to be Marthas, right? But do they know how to be a Mary? And how does being a Mary show trust in God? So what I'll do is have them make a list of things that are restful, and commit to doing them, and then check up, are you doing that? What's getting in the way? Or when you're doing that, how is that affecting your relationship with God? Yay, God! Okay. Biblical lament. We really want to help them lament to the living God who cares, hears, sees, answers. There's so much in the Psalms, and this is from a book, Deep Clouds, Deep Mercy, Discovering the Grace of Lament. And so, for those who have been ashamed by some sort of abuse, oppression, we want to help them to cry out in the brokenness of the fall. And a lament is talking to God about the distance between who you know Him to be and what you're experiencing right now. And so what this looks like, it isn't just, okay, just trust God, I gotta trust God, trust God, and God is good, and you know, that is repression. That doesn't help change your view of God. And so what we do is first, Psalm 13, we turn to God. Instead of, remember, be still for the sake of knowing he's God. I wanna be God when I'm scared, when I'm shamed, when I'm everything else. I'm gonna go to God. How long, oh God, will you forget me forever? I'm going to God. Two, bring your sorrows, your fears, your frustrations. How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? So you're letting him know honestly what your pain is and what you're experiencing and that is trust in God because you're telling him. I would want my son to tell me what's going on rather than figure like he has to figure out everything on his own and then come to me. This is what our father wants from us. We ask boldly for help. Consider and answer me, O God. O Lord, my God. Notice the possessive. He's coming back to my God. At first it's like, O Lord. Now it's becoming more intimate. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Right? Give me life. and then move towards trust. But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. Now know that for some people, especially with really dark, deep paths, I won't even go to three or four. We'll start with Psalm 88. And Psalm 88 is the darkest, deepest psalm. And the psalmist worship, all in that he can do is just turn to God. And even that is an act of worship. And for anybody that has been in a deep depression, in a deep anxiety, in a deep shame, sometimes if that is all you can do is just look up at God, that is your act of worship. Being able to differentiate misplaced shame, remember that somebody's put something on you, but you didn't live up to their standards, but it's not God's standards, from sin shame, that you really, you have sinned, you need to confess and repent. And then we need to lay aside misplaced shame. We help them see they are not to blame for another sin against them, and that God does not see them the way the person who shamed them does. So, for me, with my date rape, it could have been easy, well, I shouldn't have gotten in the car with him, or I should have known, or I should have, you know, regardless of what I did, I am not responsible for him assaulting me. But to know that up here, and to get that down here, to really know that God knows that, and to see it how God sees it, versus how I want to see it. And so a helpful book with this is called Self-Image. And what Lou Priolo does is he gives three categories of inferior judgments. Basically, how do you evaluate your judgments of yourself? And so there are inaccurate perceptions that we might make of ourself. Like, I might think, so, you know, when I talked about my teenage years, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so ugly, you know? But that might be an inaccurate perception. There could be an accurate perception, but not sinful. So, it could be something like, okay, yes, I am overweight, but that is not sinful. Right? Versus if there is something that's accurate and sinful, and you deal differently with each one of them, and he shows you and goes through the process of how to deal with each one of them. All right, lay aside false identities and other lies. That because of shame, sometimes I took on the identity of the sources of my shame, like my, you know, victim, ethnic or cultural minority, being disabled, whatever. How can I lay aside that identity and then take on my identity in Christ as a child of God? A couple helpful books for that, Jerry Bridges, Who Am I? Jerry Bridges, sorry. And then Identity Theft. What I like about this book is it's shorter chapters written by women theologians from the Reformed tradition. And so being able to rethink who am I and the other things that steal our identity as women. All right. Differentiate righteous anger from unrighteous anger. Yes, be angry, but sin not, that there is righteous anger. If there is violation, we should be angry about it. We also need to know what biblical forgiveness looks like. And David Powelson wrote this book called Good and Angry, and it's redeeming anger, irritation, complaining, and bitterness. And he does a wonderful job of being able to separate out what is righteous anger versus unrighteous anger. And he also talks about biblical forgiveness. So, first of all, know that, here's some quotes from him, that forgiveness is an event, but it is a process, okay? And it is something that God can do in you. And he also writes, forgiveness is a conscious choice formed through knowing God's mercy to you. It clearly recognizes what happened was wrong. It makes no excuses for what happened. and then it lets it go. It's not a forgive and forget. That on the cross, Jesus fully paid and acknowledged all the sin. It wasn't just like, okay, you're just forgiven. There was a price. The wrong was done. Forgiveness is not just pretending nothing bad ever happened. That is not what true forgiveness is. And then there's something called attitudinal forgiveness, and that is when we let go of debt that is owed, knowing that it's between the offender and God. So when I went to see my perpetrator, I was to the point where I could know, you know, God, beloved, vengeance is mine. However he responds, it's between him and God. I don't have to do anything. versus transactional, and he talks about something called the constructive displeasure of mercy. And this is, we do not, again, just, if there is a grievous wrong against us, we don't just overlook it. Well, let me just take a step back. You don't have to do this with everybody. But if it is somebody that is wise to do so, that we want to be able to be constructive in their life, show them the displeasure of the wrong that they did, but then show mercy on them in a way that points them to the mercy of our God. And it is not going back and pretending that nothing ever happened. It's not pretending, saying that, well now you said sorry, so you can do whatever you want now. that there you want to see repentance and a long history of repentance. But a really good book, Unpacking Forgiveness. And the key principle is God expects believers to forgive others in the way that he forgave them. But notice how God forgave his people, that it is a commitment by the one true God to pardon graciously those who repent. Again, those who repent and believe so that they're reconciled to him, although this commitment does not eliminate all consequences. So notice, consequences are still there. That forgiveness sometimes still involves consequences because that is what is most loving for the person who sinned against you. And then people forgiving people. So this is how God forgives us. So how do we forgive? It's a commitment by the offended to pardon graciously the repentant from moral liability and to be reconciled to that person, though not all consequences are necessarily eliminated. But again, there needs to be repentance. So that is a book I recommend if you are struggling to forgive. And what is forgiveness? And that is such a hard concept to grasp. And there's some other resources in your packet. Alright, biblical conflict resolution, that with shame, you tend to either be, get small and just overlook everything, or get big and just be mad about everything all the time. So, yeah, in my 20s, I was like angry Asian girl, and you did not want to be around me, but. So this was, peace faking is where you pretend everything is okay and you deny that there's any problems whatsoever. And this is kind of my Japanese side of harmony over everything. Okay, my American side, extremely assertive, my rights, and you, I'll see you in court, buddy, if you don't. And I would jump back and forth between the two. So with shame, when you can interact with somebody in a biblically loving way and be a peacemaker, that helps reduce shame. Katie beautifully talked about confession and repentance of true sin, and that is what removes shame. And that's a process, too. I'm not gonna go through this. All right, last line. No, no, there's a few more lines. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. D.A. Carson wrote, people do not drift towards holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate towards godliness, prayer, obedience to scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift towards compromise and call it tolerance. We drift towards disobedience and call it freedom. We drift towards superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation. We slouch towards prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism. We slide towards godlessness and convince ourselves that we have been liberated. So we need to teach ourselves and our counselees the spiritual disciplines. Race requires training and endurance, and each practice strengthens you. So what are they doing for their disciplines? And are they doing it as something to check off their box? Or is this an opportunity to commune with God, to behold His glory, and to be renewed in the spirit of their mind? Meditations of the heart and renewal of the mind. So this is something I like to do, is can you have a soundtrack? All right, so we have this scene here, and I'm not sure how loud this will be, but we'll give it a try. So as you're looking at this forest, what are you feeling? All right, now, what about this? Oops, I gotta stop this. Right, so what I do is I tell my gals, okay, we need to pick a soundtrack, that we always have one going, what is yours gonna be? So here are some of the soundtracks for me that I had with Shane. So when I was wrestling with shame early on in counseling, okay, what's my soundtrack? My soundtrack is, oh, I just don't measure up. I'm performing not where I want to be, da-da-da. Instead, okay, Jen, what's my soundtrack today? Oh yeah, two wonders here that I confess, my worth and my unworthiness, but you would cry, okay. Two wonders here that I confess, my worth and my unworthiness, my value fixed, my ransom paid at the cross, and then have a verse to remind me, wait, this is my soundtrack, not the Jen does not measure up, Jen, whatever, Jen, Jen, Jen. I have worth, unworthiness, but oh my gosh, Christ paid for that. Here's another soundtrack of, as you could see, I'm a striver. What heights of love, what depths of peace, when fears are stilled, when striving cease. And so, one of my life verses is, be still and know that I'm God. And another life verse, in returning and rest you shall be saved. Not in return, not in like, just doing it your own way and striving, you shall be saved. You know, because I wanted to save myself. and then in quietness and trust shall be your strength, versus in loudness and doing it, again, just doing it for God. That's not my strength. So encouraging them to have a specific meditation, because otherwise our minds are so undisciplined and they go wherever they want, and they're very habitual, and you will find out you think the same things over and over, and then the more you do that, the more that old soundtrack plays. All right. Us, this is not a church body, or this is a church, this is a race that is not individual. It's a pursuit with the body of Christ. We want to look to Jesus as a person. For, learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take 10 looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. So we want to remember and practice the gospel. We want to continue to know the triune redeemer. Seek him for his help and hope. And then remember back to the founder and perfecter of our faith, like I wanna be the perfecter of my faith, but it is God who justifies, it is God who sanctifies, it is God who glorifies. and then the joy set before him, enduring the cross, helping them learn about persevering and suffering, what it looks like to be sorrowful, and we can be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, and most of all, to know the joy of our salvation, and that God takes joy in saving us. despising the shame, knowing the cost of the cross that we heard about in my first presentation, and living out our identity, our union in Christ, rather than living out sin, shame, and misplaced shame identity. And then finally, Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Can they have, where are they worshiping in their life? Can they celebrate, where are they seeing God's grace? And then part of service for the kingdom. That shame again, we isolate, we go inward, we think we can't have nothing to offer. When we serve, it's amazing how God blesses us. So in closing, I wanted to remind you of how Jesus Christ handled shame. So he hung on the cross, not because he fell short of God's standard, but because we do. And when we're ashamed, we can go cover up and hide, right? But Christ, when he was hanging on the cross, he could not cover up and hide. His arms were exposed. His body was exposed. He could not find belonging with others. He was relationally separated from his Father in the Spirit, who he'd been at one with, in love, since before time began. And he could not cleanse himself. He bore the defilement of our sins. So he became sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God. And this is where we need to go and to take others with shame.