The Love Arena With Bishop Charles Ighele When You Feel Ashamed Of Yourself

THERE is a novel titled: “The Scarlet Letter” written by Nat haniel Halton. It is the story of a woman named Mrs Hester Pr ynne, who was caught in the act of adultery. It was a shameful thing to be done in that highly moralistic village of those days. On every dress that she had, a big letter “A” was to be imprinted on it. The letter “A” means “Adulter y.” But the woman decided to move on. She started singularly embarking on community work. Ten years later, children who grew up in that village who knew the woman and her good works started asking their parents whether the letter “A” on her dress stood for “Angel.” Mrs. Prynne stepped out of her shameful past and made a brand new story for herself.

That shameful life you may be living right now due to illegal sex or other shameful things you might have done is not your final story. Come out of that shame and start another chapter of your life. It is not as if you may not remember the shameful past once in a while, but as the great preacher A. W. Tozer said in one of his works; “you cannot prevent a bird from fly - ing over your head, but you can prevent it from building a nest on it.”

After David committed adultery with Bathsheba, he had a sense of shame after Prophet Nathan’s intervention. But having a sense of shame is different from liv - ing a life of shame. He prayed to God for forgiveness.

There is an outreach in our ministr y known as New Life for Teenage Mothers’ Centre, which I personally head. Immediately we found out that teenage mothers were secretly and deeply ashamed of themselves during pregnancy and after delivery, we spend about the first three months during our weekly meetings with them to get them out of the classroom of shame and give them a sense of self- importance. These precious young girls are either now reconciled with their parents or we are tr ying to put their lives back on track job wise, educationally or in business.

A woman who could not bear the guilt and shame of adultery confessed to her husband and the husband ended the marriage. Another confessed to her husband and the man forgave her. A man confessed to his wife, but the daily tormenting words from her made the ma n regret ever confessing to her. There is yet another set of men and women whose cases of adulter y or other shameful acts my wife and I secretly and exclusively handled without their partners or any of our pastors knowing about them. We were able to get them out of the classroom of shame and into an emotionally stable mind that made them not to repeat the shameful acts. Have you done something shameful in the past that is troubling you and dragging your marital life backward? You can come out of that classroom of shame today.