Looking to Jesus in the Midst of Shame

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Experiencing the Love and Grace of God After Abortion"

"A Way Forward"

"Behold the Daily Mercy of the Word"

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Dannah Gresh: This month on Revive Our Hearts Weekend, we’ve been looking to Jesus together. Last weekend, we looked to Him in the midst of change—those transitional seasons that leave us disoriented and desperate for His care. You can find that episode at ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend!

Today, we’re shifting gears a bit—looking to Him in the midst of our shame. Let me tell you, few things have turned my eyes upon Jesus more. Shame has been something I’ve wrestled with . . . and won! I’ll tell you more about it today.

I’m your host, Dannah Gresh. You’re listening to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. You’ll hear a little more of my story later on, but first, we’re gonna hear from one of my dearest friends, the one, the only Portia Collins. For years, we served together on the Grounded podcast, and she is still such a precious sister in ministry.

In college, before she knew Jesus, she made a choice—the choice to end her unborn baby’s life. And the aftermath brought a crippling feeling of shame. She understood the grace of God. But experientially, she felt dirty and broken. She kept that sin hidden for years, but today she wants you to know that healing never happens in the dark. For God to redeem our sin and shame, to turn the broken pieces of our stories into beautiful ones, we’ve gotta let the light in. Not too long ago, I got to ask Portia what this process looked like for her. Let's listen.

Dannah: I want to go to that day, that place, that room, where you got the courage and you said it for the first time. Was it with one person, was it with a group of people? What happened? Take us there.

Portia Collins: So, it was actually on a podcast interview!

Dannah: Go big, or go home, Portia!

Portia: I know, that’s what I said. It’s so crazy, Dannah, because the podcast was basically recounting that moment when your life changed. I felt the Lord leading me to talk about this. And in my mind I was like, “Oh, no! We’re not doing this here, like right now! Like, no!” 

And I remember I had to tell them, “Let’s pause for a minute, because I just need a minute.” I was like crying, because I was not going to talk about this on a podcast, on a public platform.

Dannah: Did your mom know when you were sitting there at that podcast, crying, wondering?

Portia: Yes, my mom did know. By that time I had told her. The way that I told my mom was, we were observing a situation with someone else who had also recently made the decision to have an abortion. And it was time. “Well, Mom, I made that decision, too.”

Dannah: What was it like to tell her?

Portia: I should have told her from the jump, when I was pregnant, honestly. I wish I had gone to my mom first. But because I feared that my mom was the kind of believer, I say “believer” loosely, let’s just say, the kind of “Christian”. . . I saw my mom through a jaded lens of experiences that I had had with other people or other moms. I saw how they were with their daughters, and I thought, That’s exactly how my mom is going to be with me. And . . . my momma wasn’t!

Dannah: What was she like? What did she say that was helpful that day you told her?

Portia: Just filled with grace! You know, of course, she expressed that she wished that I had come to her. But the thing is, my mom's love didn't change for me. I realized in that moment when I told her that my mom’s love wasn’t going to change for me. 

And so, my mom was really a vision of what we experience in Christ. I wish I had experienced that as I was making that decision. Because I can say by the time my mom found out, it was years later.

Dannah: So she was Christ to you. She was Christ in the flesh, the hands and the feet and the voice of Christ. It reminds me of that passage in Romans 8 that says,

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or [danger], or sword? . . . [No], in all . . . things we are more than conquerors through him [who] loved us” (Rom. 8:35, 37 KJV, emphasis added). And there’s not death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation that has the power to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord! (see vv. 38–39).

Those are the words of Scripture (a little bit of Dannah paraphrase in there), and that’s what you experienced when you told your mom! That’s why we’re saying, “Tell someone!”

Portia: Yes, 100 percent!

Dannah: Otherwise we risk distorting what Christ is thinking and feeling towards us, when nothing can cancel His love. 

So you’d had those experiences—telling your husband, telling your mom, you’d been in the Word, you’d been growing in the Word. You’re sitting in the seat with a mic in front of you, and you feel the Holy Spirit prompting you. You step back, tears in your eyes. What made you say something?

Portia: Because I had to speak honestly about the goodness of God in my life. And what I mean by that is, I felt like it would have been a false representation to share my life as a believer and all the things that God had done in my life, and the ways that He was growing and maturing me. It would have been a false representation of His love and the depth of His love and the breadth of His love to not speak about my abortion, not to not speak about just where He brought me from. 

And here’s the thing, Dannah: because my mom and my grandmom reared me in the faith . . . In fact, I’ve always been known as a “church girl,” because they were the church pianist and organist. I was always at church. I did a lot of “church-y” things. And so it was as if God was speaking to me and showing me, “Tell the truth so that the work that I’ve done in your life is not attributed to ‘religiosity,’ but it is truly attributed to grace!” 

And so, that’s why I opened my mouth. I didn’t have a choice, Dannah! But after I did, I could see why. I was so scared—trembling, literally shaking. But afterward, it was if—truly—a weight, a burden, had just lifted from me!

Even though I had told my mom and I had told my husband and a few other people, to be able to stand boldly and say, “This is where God has redeemed me from,” it was as if someone had just pulled a thousand pounds off of me!

And so it was as if the enemy lost his power and God got His glory, by me opening my mouth and speaking truthfully about that.

Dannah: I’m interested in knowing how people responded. I remember when that happened. We were friends at that time, we were just getting to know each other and just starting to work together. Did you experience what you feared, which was judgment? Or did you experience something different from the body of Christ once you started to share this testimony?

Portia: I experienced something different, and that was love.

I feel like God just showed me that ultimately He is sovereign over all, and He turns the hearts of man, and He molds us and He shapes us. This is a testament of God’s grace, too, because God made sure that I was just encamped with love and grace and hope and encouragement to walk forward!

He also is bringing other women in my life who had experienced the same, and had been suffering in silence, dealing with fear, guilt, and shame for so many years! I’m talking about women, some of which were ten, twenty years older than me, Dannah. They would come and say, “I've been carrying this for so long, and I heard this podcast, and now I'm speaking more openly about my experiences. I'm able to talk with my daughters and my granddaughters.”

Dannah: Wow, we have such a redemptive God, don’t we? He didn’t leave Portia sitting in sorrow and shame. No. He sent His Son, Jesus, to take that shame away. And in its place, God has given Portia a beautiful ministry. Every time she shares her story, she is a living, breathing testament to the truth of the gospel. 

What shame are you carrying today? The shame of sexual sin? The shame of being angry or short-tempered in your home? The shame of scrolling instead of engaging faithfully in the work God has set before you? Whatever sin is heavy in your heart today, you don’t have to carry it anymore. You can look to Jesus and offer it up to Him. 

When you experience the freeing forgiveness of God, you’ll be like the woman in Luke chapter 7. We don’t know her name. She was probably a prostitute. She interrupted a meal at the house of Simon the Pharisee. She had a reputation as someone who nice people shouldn’t associate with. But Jesus tenderly forgave her sins. And those eating there at the table with Jesus, started wondering, Who is this man who even forgives sins?

Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy: And Jesus said to her: “Your sins have been forgiven. Go in peace.” Go into peace. The verb there is “to go on your way.”

“Don’t just stay here, loving Me, worshiping Me. You keep loving Me and worshiping Me, but you’ve got a life to live. You can’t stay at this dinner the rest of your life. Go on your way in peace.” This woman had experienced anything but that. Her past would have said, “How could she ever go on her way in peace after all she’d done, who she was?”

Your sins may have been many. All our sins have been many. And Jesus says to you: “Your sins have been forgiven. Go in peace. Go into peace. Go on your way in peace. Move forward in peace.”

Go in peace. Move forward from this place knowing that you have peace with God. You’re no longer His enemy. You’re no longer at war with Him. And you can walk in and be filled with the peace of God. Go in peace.

Go in peace knowing that you now have a new identity, new relationships, a new calling.

Go in peace knowing that Jesus has paid the price for your sin.

Go in peace knowing and believing these wonderful promises, these amazing promises that He has given you in His Word.

Let me just give you a few. If you find the shame and guilt, the memories, the pain, the sense you can’t be released from this, you know you’ve been forgiven, but you don’t feel forgiven; then it’s hard to go in peace. Let me just give you some promises to cling to, to renew your mind with truth. You might want to write these references down. 

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom 5:1) 

[I love this passage] Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:18–19)

How many of our sins?

Audience responds: All

Nancy: All of them. You say, “Well, I know all of those, but . . .” Yeah, but what? Which one will He not cast into the depths of the sea? And if He has delighted in steadfast love, if He has pardoned iniquity, if He has passed over your transgression, if He says He will tread your iniquities underfoot, what right do you have to let those sins have a choke hold in your life?

So many women live with shame, with guilt. It hangs on. It clings to them. Women who say, “But I’ve repented. I know in my head I’ve been forgiven, but I just don’t feel it.” Here’s what a lot of them say, although you won’t find this term in Scripture, they say, “I just can’t forgive myself for what I did.” And that is probably, in most cases, a giveaway to the presence of shame.

You can’t forgive your own sins, but God can.

Scripture doesn’t ask you to forgive yourself. It doesn’t tell you to forgive yourself. You won’t find that anywhere in Scripture. It says, “Your sins, which are many, have been forgiven.” You can’t forgive your own sins, but God can. Jesus can. He paid the price for your sins.

And so, when God’s Word says He’ll tread your iniquities underfoot, He’ll pardon iniquity, He’ll pass over transgression, He will cast all your sins into the depths of the sea, what sin could you have committed that that doesn’t include?

Now, you may still say, “I don’t feel forgiven.” I will say there is often time needed to renew your mind with the promises of God’s Word, ones like the ones I’m giving you here. You’ve worn a rut into your thinking of shame and guilt. And sometimes you just need to keep counseling your mind and your heart according to truth. “Yes, I feel this, but . . . here’s what God’s Word says.”

This woman had nothing to cling to except the word of Christ: “Your sins, which are many, have been forgiven. Go in peace.” You don’t need to go on forever living as a struggling, needy woman.

I find that some women, and I want to say this carefully, develop a new identity as a needy counselee. Now, I’m not saying don’t get counseling. Godly counsel can be a really helpful tool that God uses to help you renew your mind. But you don’t want to be a needy woman who never goes forward in peace. That’s not your identity. So don’t trade your identity of sin and shame for a new identity of forgiveness and shame. Your sins, which are many, have been forgiven. Go in peace.

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth encouraging you with a wealth of Scriptures to wash away your shame. 

This is a topic I’m passionate about. And at True Woman '25, I got to share about finding daily mercy in God’s Word. The kind that frees us from shame. Here’s a little of that message, based on Psalm 130.

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We tend to be very undone by the big sins, and then there are all these everyday sins (don't mind if I step on your toes): 

• The nagging at our husbands.
• The losing our temper with our kids.
• The pride and ambition.
• Listen, let's talk about Sabbath for just a second. It's one of the ten commandments. Do you practice it?

I feel like the bad sins over here, they weigh us down with such a burden. And we are like those pilgrims climbing up, up, up, doing all the work of carrying the weight of that sin. And yet over here are all these sins that we're just not really honest about. Listen, I’ve got to tell you something: all sins separate us from God. It has the same impact, whether you think it's bad or whether you think it's not that bad. We've got to stop making excuses about our sins. We've got to be like the psalmist and come honestly. 

Here's some of the ways that I excuse my sin:

Comparison excuses. 

“Well, I'm not doing what she did.”
“Did you see . . .?”

Cultural excuses. 

“Well, it's just kind of what people do these days.”
“Everybody's watching it.”
“Everybody's listening to it.”
“Everybody's saying it.”

Identity excuses. 

“I can't help the way I am.”
“It's just my personality.”

Rights-based excuses. 

“I have the right to control my time, my body, my choices.”

Emotional excuses.

 “I can't control my emotions. I just can't.”
“If you knew what I'd been through, you would understand why I am the way I am.”

Blame-shifting excuses. 

“If I were treated better, I wouldn't do . . . fill-in-the-blank.” 

Have you ever made any of those excuses? It's time to stop making those excuses and to be honest, like this psalmist. It's the reason that it says in the Bible, “His mercies are new every morning” (Lam. 3:23). Because, guess what?, we need Him every morning. We need Him every single day. And this psalmist is crying out for that mercy. We need them every day. Verse 3: 

If you, LORD, kept a record of sins, 
LORD, who could stand? 

Now, while we need this mercy every day, I want you to know something. God is not an accountant. He's not keeping a ledger of your sin. Why do you?

Nancy often talks about how so many themes in Scripture run on parallel tracks. Have you heard her talk about the parallel tracks of Scripture? One of those parallel tracks is our need for mercy and the beautiful, beautiful gift that God is not a record keeper. When we don't have both of those held in balance, we are not walking as women in Christ. We are either walking as women weighed down by the shame of our sin for getting the mercy of God or pride.

And today the invitation from this psalmist is to understand the tension of those parallel tracks and the beauty of it. Listen, this is what I want to say. The point of understanding our need for mercy is not to hold our sin close, but to allow God to take it far away from us. How far? As far as the east is from the west—those two can never meet. 

I don't care what sin you've come in here with . . . If you're coming in here with sins of abortion and sins of sexual sin and sins of pornography addiction, sins of covetousness and murder in your heart, listen, God's mercy is big enough for that.

And if you're coming in with the little, itty-bitty sins, you need mercy.

But make no mistake, He is not a record keeper.

Then why do we feel the shame and the pain sometimes? Here's what I've decided. That period in my life where I was so weighed down by my sin and my shame drove me to Jesus. The pain drove me to Jesus. And listen, if you're feeling shame, if there's something . . . How do you know if you're feeling it? Well, if I walked up to you today and said to you, “Hey, what is it that separates you from God?” And you could not get your mouth to say the words? That's probably shame.

I mean, if you're serving the Lord, you're a leader in the church, and there's a woman in your life who has struggled or is struggling with the same sin that you've never told anybody about, but your testimony could set her free, you're probably struggling with shame.

When we're struggling with shame, we have two choices. We can either allow that pain to make us run to the Mercy Giver and say, “Give me the mercy I don't deserve! Please Jesus, wash this away. Cast my sin as far as the east is from the west.” Or, we can hold onto it and cooperate with Satan's work of silencing us. Which do you choose?

I chose to run to Jesus. I chose to run to Him. I’ve got to tell you something, that included running to my mom, running to my husband, running to my best friend and telling them. Here's the thing, I'd never told anyone.

James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins one to another and then you will be healed” (paraphrased). Confession to God and God alone, it makes us right with God. But He has given us the Body for the healing work that has to happen in our hearts.

No more secrets. No more secrets. Today your invitation is to be honest with your sin. Why? 

Because with you there is forgiveness 
so that we can, with reverence, serve you. (v. 4) 

God can and does forgive, and it feels glorious! .Never in my life have I felt weight lift from me than when I finally started to live in the power of Psalm 130, that He does forgive sin! 

Dannah: It’s true, he did.And my friend, he can revive your heart, too. In closing today, I just want to read part of Psalm 130 to you. Would you let it just wash over you, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, however you’re feeling in your spirit? Here we go.

LORD, if you kept an account of iniquities,
LORD, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
so that you may be revered.

I wait for the LORD; I wait
and put my hope in his word.
I wait for the LORD
more than watchmen for the morning—
more than watchmen for the morning.

Israel, put your hope in the LORD.
For there is faithful love with the LORD,
and with him is redemption in abundance.

Shame isn’t something only “grown-up” women experience. Teen girls struggle, too! We created the Wonder App to meet these precious daughters, sisters, and granddaughters with the shame-destroying truth of God’s Word. Each and every day, they’ll walk through Scripture with one of our Wonder Mentors—a young woman a little further along in years, eager to share how God’s Word has transformed her own story. To connect your girls with our community of ten thousand teen girls and counting, visit ReviveOurHearts.com/wonder. 

If you’re excited about Revive Our Hearts ministry efforts like the Wonder App, if you’ve found freedom because of a podcast episode, or learned how to better walk with a friend because you’ve listened in, would you consider making a donation to help us continue this work? Every gift matters greatly.

When you donate this month, we’ll send you Nancy’s new Advent Devotional, Consider Jesus. It would be such a lovely addition to your Christmas traditions this year. To give and request yours, visit ReviveOurHearts.com.

And if you’re not able to give at this time, would you pray that God would continue to bless the ministry of Revive Our Hearts, allowing us to call more women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ? We believe God receives those requests and loves to bless them! 

Last weekend, we looked to Jesus in the midst of change, today we looked to him in the midst of shame, and next weekend, we’re looking to Him in our exhaustion. If you’re weary, burned out, and desperate for refreshment, I hope you’ll join us.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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