The Painful Act of Intimacy

 I find myself being very territorial about the one thing that I can't afford to hold on to most.  I am  clinging to my painful failures.  I feel like I am living a life of secret shame more often then I should.  I don't like to share what is deeply going on inside of me, and I don't like to tell people all of the things that go wrong in my life.  I don't like to share my pain, and it turns me into this quiet hollowed out human being that is slowly suffocating under a pile of failed expectations and dead dreams.  If anyone tries to get too close I despirately fight to keep them back because it hurts for anyone to see that aweful part of me.  I feel like a lot of people only want to know my shame so that they can shove my head down in my filth like a dog who has not learned to take its business outside.  I have issues just like everyone else, but I am suppose to be the one that is perfect because I dared to stand out and try to live for Christ.  I have the good family and read my Bible and stay away from risky behaviors.  So what could possibly be so wrong with me? People have poked at me for so long trying to prove me as worthless and fake as they said I was that I  have to fight the feeling of being sick every day.  I have to fight the feeling of being hopeless every day. It is a battle for me not to forget who God made me to be.  My shame has kept me from asking for help when I needed it badly; it kept a distance between me and my family for a long time, and it still sucks the life right out of me if I let it.  Thank God for examples of people who let Christ in far enough to where they showed him their pile of shame.  Christ wiped away the shame of the woman caught in adultery, he took away the stigma on the woman with the issue of blood, and he changed the life of the woman at the well forever.  At my last single's meeting at my church one of the speakers referred to intimacy as getting naked.  He meant it in both the physical and the spiritual sense.  I know now that I am afraid of this with anyone. I have been so careful my whole life to be put together that the thought of exposing myself to the point of having no protection and no modesty cover is horrifying, but this is what God wants from me.  I know it because he is tugging at my heart to just get everything out on the table.  I am fully aware that God sees everything and knows everything already, but I don't like consciously showing my shame.  I want God to smile with me and be joyful when he looks at me.  I don't want him to be disgusted when he sees my wounds and filth piled at my feet.  I feel so defective, but the amazing thing is that Christ has already become my cleansing solution.  I have tried to make myself different and while my actions have changed I was miserable and miserable to be around.  Thank God he loves me no matter what, and he never pulls away from me even when I cling to the things that hurt me. He just keeps calling my name.  I can hear the Lord saying that he doesn't want me to pray someone else's prayer and he doesn't want me to be political or professional.  God is holding his hand open to me and he promised me that he would revive my destroyed life.  I believe God, but it is a new discipline for me to take off my academic attitude, my church jargon, and my tough girl stance. It is painful for me, but I know that it will be worth it. He is requesting to take the  burdens the have been breaking me down. I am never alone, and neither are you.  You don't have to tell everyone about it, just tell Jesus and then listen for his response.