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Praying the Way Through Shame

March 13, 2015
Shar Karsten and her husband, Jerry

Shar Karsten and her husband, Jerry

Written by Shar Karsten, this is the ninth in a series of stories about ways in which prayer has touched people’s lives. The stories will run between now and the CRC Prayer Summit 2015 set for April 13-15 at All Nations CRC in Los Angeles, Calif.

If you have a story about prayer that you would like to share, please send it to Chris Meehan at [email protected]. Any questions, call 1-616-224-0849.

Prayer seems so simple. You just talk to God. But, though that is true, there is more to it than that. If it were that easy, we would all be doing a lot more of it.

There were times in my life when praying came easy. Answers came quickly. There was a rhythm that seemed to work. But there were just as many times when I didn’t pray. I didn’t know what to say. There seemed to be something lacking.

I still prayed before meals, and I still told people I would pray for them, but little prayer was actually happening.

And then I attended the West Michigan prayer summit in November 2013, and the Embers to Flames Prayer training held this past winter in Holland, Mich., and my prayer life will never be the same.

There were so many things I learned from both of those experiences, but the one I believe had the greatest impact was when I truly engaged in repentance.

When I experienced God’s forgiveness in a way I never had before, it’s as if it opened the floodgates, and nothing will ever be the same.

Like everyone else, I have carried wounds inside of me that were hidden from others, and that I thought were hidden from God.

Some of them were the result of others’ hurtful actions and words. They produced shame in me. I felt less important, less valuable, less worthy of a relationship with God, because I had taken others’ judgments of me into my soul as truth.

Some of them were the result of my actions. I did things I didn’t want others to know about. Some of them were things others did know about.

I was so filled with shame I was afraid of letting others close enough to see my failures, including God. Not all of them were bad, but they were shame producers for me. I had not met my own standards for perfection.

We all have things that we don’t dare admit to others. Things that have wounded us, kept us from fully being who God created us to be. There are people we need to forgive, and we need to forgive ourselves. Then we will be open to letting God have more of us.

At a prayer training, people prayed that I would be healed from the shame that had kept me from fully experiencing a relationship with God. As they prayed, I realized a part of my soul had been unavailable to God because it was hidden in shame.

I realized how the sins of guilt, shame, feeling unworthy, kept me from praying bold prayers. I didn’t believe God would really hear me. I was too messy.

But their prayers broke through that darkness and brought light to the broken places. God opened the door of my self-made prison and set me free.

Shar Karsten is a member of Hillside Community Church in Grand Rapids.