Last year I discovered that my healing has been fragmented. My heart is not whole. I’m asking God to bind together the broken parts of my heart and make it whole.
I realized one area of brokenness stems from shame I experienced as a child. This past summer I started digging for the root of my shame, and while there were many instances, God kept bringing one particular experience to mind. Every time I’d see a cigarette butt on the ground, I was reminded.
I was three or four years old, and my family lived next door to some of our extended family members. My cousin and I would play outside at her house for hours at a time. We lived in the country, so our outside play often wasn’t closely supervised. Both my uncle and aunt were smokers, and would toss their cigarette butts to the ground when finished. The driveway area next to the back door was apparently the favored smoking spot.
One sunny day as my cousin and I played outside, we each grabbed a cigarette butt from the ground and pretended to smoke. Gross, I know. I don’t remember anything else about the experience. I don’t remember feeling like I was doing anything wrong. I don’t remember it being gross. I don’t remember it being fun. We were simply imitating what we’d seen adults do. Nothing more.
What I do remember is what happened that evening. As my family gathered in our living room, I sat next to my dad. He was usually my safe place. But that evening, the scent of stale cigarette must’ve lingered on my breath. As I talked to my daddy, his face distorted with question. He leaned in close to my face and demanded to smell my breath. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I knew something was definitely wrong. Then came the barrage of questions: Why did my breath smell of cigarettes? Had I been smoking? Had someone given me a cigarette?
Immediately, because I feared the anger I saw and heard, I lied. It must’ve shown all over my face because my dad started partially quoting John 8:32: …the truth shall make you free. Guilt heaped on my head quickly. Within minutes, I caved and told the truth of what happened…in front of my family. It became a family ordeal. I was reprimanded and scolded and told to never touch a cigarette again. My parents had hushed conversations, and my older sisters were warned not to allow me to play at my cousin’s house anymore. The shame I felt that night lasted consciously for several days; but I’m pretty sure it’s still with me today.
I qualify as a textbook case of characteristics of adults shamed in childhood. I meet most of the 21 characteristics listed in Shame and Guilt. One of the steps included in “Healing From Shame,” an informational sheet from my counselor, is to discover the roots of shame. I believe this incident was my first experience with shame, at least from my dad. It’s the first time I can remember laying the foundation for the walls that I’d later build to protect myself. I bought into the lies that trying new things was to be feared, and that I needed to be as close to perfect as possible to be loved.
I still don’t know why my dad reacted the way he did in that incident, as well as in subsequent others. I have my guesses, but they’re simply my opinions. Maybe that’s the only way he knew to respond.
God gave me an opportunity this past summer to see that situation redeemed. My husband and I had taken our girls and a few friends to the water park as a birthday gift for our youngest daughter. Instead of paying the astronomical park lunch prices, we packed a picnic lunch and ate at the tables just outside the park gates. All the girls were finished eating, except my middle child. I told my husband to go ahead and take everyone else back in, and I’d wait for her to finish. As I waited, a little boy walked over to where we were and was playing. His parents were close by, but weren’t especially attentive. He appeared to be about three or four, and had a mischievous grin on his face. He reached down, picked up a cigarette butt off the ground, and pretended to smoke. I grinned back at him, and asked him if he was having fun, to which he replied he was. I asked if he was pretending to smoke, and he nodded yes. I then, with a gentle and playful tone, told him the cigarette butt was nasty and had germs on it. He grinned and walked away.
In those moments, I was able to respond in a way that didn’t shame the child. God was gracious to show me how my childhood experience could have been different. He gave me a new memory…because now when I think about that evening, it’s followed by the memory of that little boy and his mischievous grin. And I realize that the root of shame is being unearthed.
