Voices In My Head Podcast Episode #285: "Shame Off You" with guest Denise Pass

Have you ever thought to yourself, man, I'd like to host my own podcast? Well, guess what?

You can go to podbean.com/voices and get everything you need to create, manage, and promote your podcast. I use Podbean every week for Voices in My Head. There's easy uploading and publishing tools, stunning templates, custom domains, social and promotional tools, an embeddable podcast player, monetization tools, and more. It is your all-in-one podcasting solution. With Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Best of all, everything is mobile ready right from the start. So go to podbean.com/voices, and when you sign up, use the code "voices" and you'll get a sizable discount. Podbean, for your home podcasting. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.

Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer-songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is your source for discussions on music, literature, movies, pop culture, theology, and more. Now sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of the Voices in My Head podcast. And don't forget to let the voices in your head be be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show. Denise Pass is an author, an award-winning CCM recording artist, a songwriter, an accomplished blogger and writer, a speaker, a worship leader, and a podcast host of Black and White. She is the author of 31 Days to Hope Reinvented And today we are discussing her latest book, Shame Off You: From Hiding to Healing, which released on August 21st through Abingdon Press. Denise Pass, welcome to the Voices in My Head podcast.

Well, thank you so much for having me here today, Rick. It's my pleasure.

Well, I am grateful that you were able to come on the show today and talk about your new book. As I was telling you before we started, I've had a chance to read quite a lot of it. I haven't quite finished it yet, but I want to say at the outset to you, just thank you for being so transparent in what is at times a very difficult story to tell in your life. And I know that God has brought a lot of healing and grace, and we read about a lot of that in the book, but it's still a very courageous thing to be able to tell your story. So I just wanted to thank you at the outset of the show today.

Well, thank you so much for the privilege of being able to share. You know, I think stories are hard to tell when you're in the midst of them, but the Lord heals you. And you know, we're outside of a decade later, and he's done an incredible work in my heart. So I'm grateful for that.

Yeah, I, you know, one of my favorite song lyrics, and you, you may actually know this, but Andrew Peterson is just one of my favorite writers. And he has a line that says— he talks about healing and he says, "The aching may remain, but the breaking does not." And I think in many ways that sums up a lot of your story that we're going to talk about today. So as we begin today, I wonder if you could tell the listeners of my podcast just a little bit about your personal experience that led you to the writing of your new book, Shame Off You.

Oh, sure thing. Well, you know, shame is one of those things that a lot of us might be able to readily identify in our lives, but sometimes we become aware of it when we go through something traumatic in our lives that we feel shame for. And that was the case for me. I had been one of those accident-prone people growing up, so I had enough shame of my own to own up to. For different things that I did. But when I came to know Christ at age 19 and I waited for marriage and married a Christian man, you know, I thought, "Hey, I'm living my life in accordance with God's Word. I probably won't have anything too catastrophic happen in my life." It's funny how we can live our lives trying to be beneath the radar and realize God might have some other plans, and he's gonna— no matter what happens in this life, he's going to be faithful to us. And so for me, um, it wasn't, uh, 14 years into my first marriage that we were in the midst of adopting a son from Russia. And that adoption process exposed a background for my husband that I knew nothing about. And it would come to be known that he had sexually violated a couple of our children.

Oh my.

And the revelation of that was really the Holy Spirit revealing it to me. And I removed the children the moment I knew. But as you can imagine, the just shock of it, you don't really feel like you can function. Yeah, you're just overwhelmed, and you had no idea that this was coming because you married a Christian. And, you know, again, you go back to, hey, if I do A plus B, it's going to equal C in my life. But we definitely felt a lot of stigma and shame from that. We were this homeschool family. I was going to protect my children, and so to have that happen in our home when, you know, the very irony of that, you know, I was keeping them safe and it was within our own home.

Wow. Well, and you know, you talked about the Holy Spirit revealing it to you, and in the book you, you make that very plain as you were in prayer and you felt like the Spirit was telling you, your husband has something to say to you. And, and I know this is my summary of it, but He was in the shower and you went to talk to him. This is, to me, one of the most powerful examples of the way that God truly does speak to us. You just said to him, "The Lord tells me that you have something to tell me." I probably said that not exactly in the right way. I hope it's close to what it said in your book. Would you mind just sharing a little bit about that? I know that's a tough thing, but I I'm always amazed at the way that God is doing his work, and I do think that God ultimately reveals those things and brings light to those things in our life that need to have light brought to them.

Definitely. So, you know, I know you're a songwriter as well, so I'm sure you can identify with the statement that God speaks to us in the wee hours.

Sure, definitely.

If it's late at night or early in the morning and The night before the revelation, I had been woken up to write a song for God, and those were such sweet times usually for me of fellowship with God. And often I would be praying for somebody while I'm writing the song because it was about someone else, or maybe it was a worship song. But that night, and this is December 2007, I was overcome with a sense of fear. And I never had that happen, and I just felt this presence of evil. And as I went to bed, I didn't really know what that meant, and I had been weeping and crying out to the Lord. And the next morning when I woke up, it's like the sun poked through the window there, woke me up, and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, "Ask your husband, say, 'God says you have something to tell me.'" And you know you have those times where you just know this is God speaking. Yeah. Well, this was a definite— God definitely clearly spoke that to my spirit. And so I had no idea what this would be about because there was— it was completely hidden. And I went into the bathroom and asked him, hey, God says you have something to tell me. And he wouldn't tell me. He said, you know, I'm going to tell you later. In my heart, I just knew there's something about to happen in my life. I don't know what it is. And my children and I had to go to a nursing home that day. I led a homeschool co-op and we were going to share the gospel through skits and song. And as I'm driving there, the Holy Spirit whispers to me again, ask your daughter how she slept last night. Hmm. And I can't really put into words what it felt like. You feel like you've just been sucker punched so hard. So hard, you can't breathe, you know you're about to— your world's about to be completely flipped over, and you're in a car with all these kids. So what are you supposed to do with that? And so I asked my oldest daughter, I said, how did you sleep last night? You know, and she said, not so well, Mom. Dad came in my room last night and was hugging me for a couple of hours. So for me, I knew— I didn't know what it was, and I knew I couldn't talk to her about it in that moment. But I did, you know, question her, say, "Are you doing okay? Is everything, you know?" And we went on to minister there. And so the whole day was this constant me going and asking my now ex-husband, "Do you have something to tell me?" And him saying, "I'm not telling you." Finally, that evening we went to a new small group and I said, "Look, the Lord is revealing it to me. I know you've done something. You need to tell me what it is. The children and I are not coming home and you need to tell me." And again, "I'm not telling you." And so it was a constant, you know, battle there. Later that evening is when he would tell me over the phone and So yes, the Lord reveals things to his people, and you know, he does it in a way, you know, he prepares our heart, but really there's nothing that can adequately prepare you for the devastation of our— as comes with sexual abuse.

Sure. I honestly, I don't have any words for how that must have been for you. What also amazes me about that story And thank God it was revealed so you could get out of that situation. But it seemed like the church you were at at the time was not so much there to help kind of rescue you out of that as they were adding some shame to you. And some people may wonder, well, why would Denise feel shame throughout this? And in fact, you talk about in your book the way that we often in the church tend to shame people instead of rescuing them. I wonder if you could maybe describe a little bit of that, because I feel like if people are finding themselves in this situation— churches are made up of people who are infallible, or who are fallible, I mean, not infallible. I said that wrong. But I think it's important for us to point out if things happened from the leadership like what happened to you, this is not necessarily a healthy thing and not even a godly that some advice that is offered is not always the best. Would you mind sharing a little bit about that and the response of your church when they found out?

Sure. And I want to just say at the outset, my goal is redemption. You know, anything I share, I have no bitterness. I've completely forgiven anyone in the process of the horrors that we went through. That a lot of times people are frankly ill-equipped And look, we, we know what it is to be redeemed, right? And so we want to believe when someone says they're sorry for what they did, that, hey, we can have this great testimony and we can have this reconciliation. And so I applaud them for desiring that. However, um, what is often the case with sexual abuse is it is not a simple, oh, I'm sorry, let's move on with life. And people don't really understand that. For me, the same Holy Spirit who revealed to me also warned me, "No, no." And so as I met with leaders from the church and I was open, you know, divorce was not something I ever considered. You know, I know there's always got to be another way. But—

and by the way, if you don't mind, I think it might be important to let people know you were leading worship at this church too, if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct?

I served on the worship team at that church, yes, singing, and I did lead worship for women's events, but I was just a vocalist primarily at that church. And yes, so, you know, I've been being a leader in the community and in the church and in the homeschool community. It was definitely very difficult to navigate and there was, you know, the direction from leadership at that church, "Do not talk to anyone about this." Sure. Because there was the hope of reconciliation, and I understand that hope, but we felt exceptionally isolated and in a position of, you know, "How are we supposed to navigate this?" You know, and going to the altar and weeping every day. But it was at a meeting with the leaders where, you know, I was looking at Matthew 5 and The Word very clearly says, you know, no, it doesn't recommend divorce. Divorce is horrible. I would still say that today, you know, if, if there's a way not to get a divorce, amen. But, you know, in my situation, you know, and the Bible says except for porneia, which is any and all sexual immorality. And, you know, they actually came back to me and said, well, it wasn't adultery because it wasn't with an adult. Wow, but that is about the worst counsel ever. I mean, I'm just gonna say, yeah, that's bad. Yeah, so, you know, it was one of those things, um, where, you know, you had to go to God's word. That's what I had to do. And I wanted to respect them. I respected their leadership. They're godly people, but they were wrong. And, um, you know, one point, one of them said to me, do you think you can hear the voice of God above us? And absolutely I can because I'm a child of God. And you know, his word says we can hear him. And so there was just pressure. And I felt like the worst sinner ever. And I already felt completely horrific. And to your question earlier, why did I feel shame? I made a promise to protect my children. I had been sexually abused as a child. And so in my home, it wasn't going to happen. You know, we didn't do sleepovers. You know, I definitely the helicopter parent, definitely identify. But you know, but also trying to walk this out in a balanced way. But so for it to happen in our home, you know, you feel incredible guilt and shame. How did I let that happen? How did I not know? You know, now thank God for His word and you realize people can lie and you're not to blame for that. But still you have this issue of shame and you go out in public and you see the stares and you can imagine in your own mind what they might be thinking. And, you know, finally we left that church and I went to a new church. Um, but yeah, I believe when people have that feeling of shame, whether it is legitimate, you know, as in they caused that own shame on themselves, or false shame, it still has to be dealt with, and biblically is the best way.

Yeah, well, that's— yeah, that's— I almost struggle for words when I hear advice like that given from pastoral staff. And again, I don't want to cast judgment on anybody. So like you said, so many people are ill-equipped, and I know that I am at times when situations happen. But the safety of the children and of you really needed to be at the forefront.

Paramount.

Yeah, exactly right. So it's interesting that to me in this book too, you also talk about, um, the way that we tend to cast shame on people in society, not just in situations like this, but you even referred to when you had gone to adopt your son from Russia and the way that your the— your then— your new son was running up and down the aisle of the plane. And that was partially because you say in your book that, you know, he didn't speak the language, and it was to keep him from beating his head against the window. And you said, you know, what, what we tend to do is shame parents, you know, at times for the way that the children are acting, and, and not necessarily take into account that person's story and where they've been. And I think that's an interesting part of what you bring out in this book, that shame is in many ways a part of our society. We tend to shame people. And yet, in the book— I don't want to give it all away because I do want people to read it— but in finding a new church, you were able to find some rescue and some newness from that and some, some new things that came to pass. I wonder, in talking about shame, what are some of the common examples of shame coping mechanisms and, and how we can avoid falling into these traps?

Yes, well, and I love what you're just bringing up real quick about the plane ride. I do think parents don't even realize that they are trying to affect the external behavior of their children because of pride, because they don't want to be shamed. No one wants the screaming kid and all eyes on them, right?

Right. I understand.

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, really, if our goal is to shape our children's hearts to know God, then we should care more about their character than about any shame we would receive for when they act up. And, you know, but it is one of those things, I, you know, I look at Adam and Eve when you talk about shame coping mechanisms and Their default was, "Let's throw some fig leaves on," right? The problem is, you know, obviously that was very obvious, you know, and one of the stories I share in my book is when I had chocolate stain on the back of my pants and I tied a jacket around my waist. And it's just like Adam and Eve, we want to hide it, but hiding shame doesn't heal it, or we want to deny it or blame someone else, you know. Deception. There's a whole spectrum of shame and how people try to avoid it. But you know, the core scripture God gave me as I was on my knees about to present this book to publishers was out of Proverbs 11:2. And you know, right there happened to be my Bible reading for the day. Says that with pride comes shame, with humility comes wisdom. And so I think Or with wisdom comes humility. I think the thing is we have to realize that we try to get rid of shame by pride. You know, we don't want anyone to blame us for anything. You know, a common way that I dealt with it was, you know, people are talking about you. What, what did they say about me? You know, it's this preoccupation with self, which is pride. And so if we can instead examine the shame and say, God, is there anything in here I need to receive? Is there any truth in here that you want me to apply in my life? And if there is, just receive it. It's oil on our head. And if not, dismiss it in Jesus' name, you know. But with humility, we should know that we're capable of shame for sure. Because there's nothing good in our hearts, right?

Sure.

There's no one good, no, not one. But because of Christ, we've been redeemed. And so when someone says something about me that's not true, I used to get shocked over that. Now I laugh. No, no, I, I, I, I thank God that it's an opportunity to examine my heart. And it's grace in our lives You know, so it's a very different way of looking at shame. And if we cannot be put off it and be willing— put off by it and be willing to examine it, then that's a great place to be at.

Well, and I'd like, if you don't mind, I just want to read a short segment from your book that I think fills in well what we're talking about right now. And you say in the book on page 37, if somebody has the paperback paperback copy, uh, says, what a liberating truth this is. The pressure's off when we realize that the grace of God reveals our shortcomings not to condemn us but to take us to another level of freedom. And I think that actually speaks to so many things when it comes to the way that we tend to experience shame in our life, because so often, um, if it's people in the world that want to point out something bad about us, it often is to shame us. And, you know, shame on you for what you did. And I can think right now, you know, we're in a moment in, um, in time right now where the Me Too movement is big, and people are constantly pointing fingers at someone and, and saying, you did this. And it's a big shame fest. And I wonder if sometimes— I, I want to go back to what you said a moment ago. Your goal is is redemption of people. I think that maybe one thing that I wish those in the secular world realized at times when it comes to things like pointing out sins in people's lives— which by the way, it's good to have ourselves cleansed from sin, and wrongdoing needs to be stopped, so I'm not against that— but I think sometimes our goal is only to shame that person and not to bring redemption. And there's something that we need to keep in mind as people of the gospel, that God calls us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. And that it may not mean we should stay with that spouse who's abusing our children, but it does still mean that God still wants to redeem them in some way. And I love how you brought it at the beginning, that our goal with even what God does in us when he shows us the sin in our lives, it's not to shame us. It truly is to redeem us and to bring about good for us. And so I really appreciated the way that you brought that out in scripture. And you cite a lot of scripture throughout the book, and I wonder if you could share a piece of scripture that you found most encouraging for those who might be longing to break the chains of shame that are in their lives right now, because I know this is a problem for many, many people. If I were to admit it, I operate more on shame than I would like to myself, you know, and I think all of us probably do in one way or another. I just wonder if you could cite any of those scriptures for us.

For sure, but I would also like to, if I could, just comment on what you were saying.

Please.

This is so important that the body of Christ understands redemption. You see, I, I just saw my ex-husband the other day and shook his hand and told him I forgive him. And you see, I think, is there still hurt that I still deal with? Do we still have pain? Even last week, my children coming to me with consequences still. Yes, but you know, um, I'm not the judge. And I see it in church Sunday after Sunday, not just— I'm not saying my church, but throughout you see this pattern of exposing one another. And oh, I'm going to get you because you've done this. Or— and if we go in gentleness and humility, we give the opportunity for growth. And, and relationships are beautiful, but it's like we want to crucify one another verbally. And Christ died for each one of us because we're all guilty. And so I love the principle of none of us are in the position to shame anybody. We're recipients of grace. And so in gentleness, humility, I go because I love and care for someone's soul, not because I want to catch them in an aha moment. So I just had to say that.

No, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

But so one of my favorite verses is out of Isaiah 54:4. For. But I literally had so many scriptures that the publisher said, we're gonna have to remove some of these. And I hate to say that, too much Bible. But it was just, I love God's word and I wanted everything I said to be backed up by God's word. And so that's why I also put a resource guide in back, because it is, um, it is chock full of, you know, 40 different types of shame with 3 scriptures revealing the The root of shame, the fruit of shame, and the cure for shame. But Isaiah 54:4 says, fear not. You know, right there, don't be afraid. You will not be put to shame and do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced. But you will forget the shame of your youth and the reproach of your widowhood. You will remember no more. Wow. That one speaks to me as when I was a single mom.

And, uh, talk about telling your story, huh?

Oh yeah, you show up to church and, you know, especially went to that new church, it happened to be that they were doing a poster board testimony that day and I was desperate to hear that somehow God could heal our mess. And if I'm honest, there's a part of me that doubted it was impossible. But God showed me he could take away that reproach, you know, and he has restored me. And what a God who would do that. I think we want to avoid pain in this life. We get mad at God when pain is allowed in, but we're in a fallen world. This is not heaven. And when those things happen, if we can look to the author of life who gave us his word, that leads us through anything we go through. And that is our help.

Yes, for sure. You know, I, I was thinking of a scripture as well as you were talking, and those that you shared were powerful. But, you know, James 5 is a passage that I've had a lot of discussions with my pastor about over the years, and we've— we always use that passage when we talk about anointing people who are sick. And, you know, it says, is anyone among you in trouble? Let praise. Anyone happy, let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil, and in the name of the— in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick well. The Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. And then there's a verse that we often leave out. It says, therefore confess your sins to each other, pray for each other, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. And I think again, you know, what you've hit on in your book, that the grace of God is not there to shame us, the grace of God is there to heal us. And I think so often in a passage like that, we stop just before the part that says confess your sins. We'll say, pray the prayer for the sick, pray that, you know, if you're happy, sing a song. And it seems like so often we just cut it off before the confessing part. But even in that passage when it talks about us confessing, maybe some of our shame does have to do at times with this real need to confess things that are there that we need to get out. Again, I don't think God's goal in that is to shame us. It's so that we may be healed. And I think that's a beautiful thought. And I feel like your book just illustrates that so well, that so much of this—

Oh, praise the Lord.

—is about being redeemed through all of this.

Um, well, you know, too, we can be surprised. Here's a surprise of when others shame us: it can cause sin in our life. How do we respond to it? Do we get embittered, angry? Did we respond with hatred? And so we need to confess our aspect and our part of it. Even if we didn't initiate it, we may have something to own. But the beautiful thing, even when you didn't produce that shame in your life. I just look at Christ, and this was a place of worship for me in writing the book. At the— every chapter I wept over in some fashion. But the final, at the end, I talk about Christ and, and he came to die for our sins. And how did he choose to come? In shame. He went through shame he didn't have to go through. He, he was a creator of the world, and he was shamed by everybody. The government, the church, his family, everybody. But look what the word says. It says here in Hebrews 12:2, we do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross— and here's the part— disregarding its shame. Other verses say scorning its shame. We have a choice. We don't have to regard shame. We give it the power because we care so very much what people think about us, which ultimately is wanting praise from man instead of living to praise God. And so that humbled me that, you know, if people don't think highly of me— and hey, I have that in my life now, you know, you're always going to have people who just don't like you, and it's okay. You know what, maybe there's people we don't care for too. Yeah, we have to watch Watch that, you know. But to not regard shame, what freedom and empowerment that is. That's one.

That's great to hear. I, I hate to say this, but my, my time is running short, and I, I'm gonna have to wrap up our conversation a little bit. I, I want to say the title of the book again so people will have it, but it's Shame Off You, not Shame On You, but Shame Off You by Denise Pass. The book is available through Abington And I'm sure you can get them at all the places that books are available online. But I wonder if before we're done today, just a couple more quick questions. If readers take away one thing from your book, what do you hope it would be?

Do not let anyone or any shame define you. Your identity is in Christ alone. And we have a lot of Christians, a lot of people walking around with a stolen identity or a false identity. We wear these labels that are thrown on us. We put them on ourselves a lot of the time. I'm not good enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not smart enough. Why don't we put our identity in what God said about us? He made us. He delights in us. And that's so hard to do. Because we have a society that's so performance-oriented. But shame does not stick to a forgiven soul, and hiding doesn't heal it. So put on the identity of Christ.

Well, that's a, a powerful message for us today. Thank you, Denise. Um, I want to send all of our listeners to your website at DenisePass.com. And to spell that out, that's D-E-N-I-S-E p-a-s-s.com, and you'll be able to see not only her books, but you can read more about her. You can find her music there. Uh, you're a multi-talented person. You have so many different things going on in your life, a bit like me with podcasting and music and worship leading and all kinds of things. And I know how busy that gets, but you're also doing a great job as a mom. And so I just want to encourage you that— thank you for sharing about your new book Shame Off You, and I hope you sell a bunch of copies to a bunch of people who really need this kind of hope that you're sharing in the book. Any last thing that you would like to send people to? We've talked about your website, we've talked about your book. Is there anything else that we should let people know about before we sign off today? Surely. Thank you.

So I designed a website that's going to keep growing called shameoffyou.life, and that is for the book. And it has a quiz on there for you people out there who say, uh, I got no shame. Oh wow, you might have some. Um, and it's really just a fun, um, realization that there's a spectrum. You might just have the embarrassment level, humiliation level, but to have that eye-opening understanding that you do and God can remove it. And then there's also the— you alluded to the podcast blackandwhitepodcast.com. And that is, uh, I host that with my co-host Micah Maddox, and we try to explore the issues of today. And actually, it's blackandwhitepodcast.org, my bad. Okay. Um, and we discuss the issues in society that maybe some people don't want to touch, not because we want to be controversial, but because we want to speak God's truth in gentle and loving way. And so we're not staying away from topics and approaching with a biblical worldview.

Well, wonderful. Well, Denise Pass, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you for being one of the Voices in My Head this week.

Thank you so much for having me, Rick. God bless you.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com. .com. Follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames. Like my artist page at facebook.com/RickLeeJames.

And keep up to date on what I'm writing on my author page on Amazon.

There's also the Voices in My Head Facebook community found at facebook.com/VoicesPodcast. And if you want to follow my alter ego on Twitter, follow my popular Mr. Rogers quote account found at @MrRogersCitations. Say. Also, make sure to follow my appearance schedule on my website, and if you would like to have me come to your town to do a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, you can book me through my website at rickleejames.com/bookings. And it would mean the world to me if you would write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet. And now the benediction. May the God of peace, who raised Christ from the dead, strengthen you in your inner being for every good work. And may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore. Amen.