Shame is a breeding ground for all kinds of pandemics but Vulnerability is a powerful antidote to the marital pandemic of conflict.
Shame is a Breeding Ground for Pandemics
We are in a state of emergency because of COVID-19. It can be argued that one of the factors contributing to the pandemic was China’s shame or fear of appearing weak as a nation and a refusal to accept help in the beginning.
In a similar way, marital conflict can grow to pandemic levels in the breeding ground of shame.
A couple in conflict will typically wait 6 or 7 years before seeking professional help. Shame keeps couples from reaching out and admitting they have struggles until they have reached a state of emergency. Shame says don’t air our dirty laundry.
In our marriage mentoring ministry, many of the couples who come to us have deeply entrenched patterns of conflict that have been going on for years. Some of them come from other churches because “no one can know about this” at their home church.
The silence of shame only makes matters worse. We mistakenly believe vulnerability is powerlessness. But if I have symptoms of physical disease, I know that healing will come from sharing my fears with a medical professional.
The Power of Vulnerability is in Healing
Being vulnerable and open with my doctor is essential to getting the best results.
In the same way, being vulnerable about marital struggles is essential for healing. But shame and stigma keeps us covered in silence when it comes to relationship disease. That only makes matters worse.
In God’s design, great power comes from vulnerability.
The first place our vulnerability should take us is on our knees in prayer. God already knows about your conflict, and he knows how you contribute to the conflict. When we humbly confess or tell the truth to him, he will fill our openness with powerful grace.
God also provides caring people to come alongside hurting couples. A trained professional can help. Contact me and I’d be glad to offer some resources.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NIV