Breaking Down the Walls of Shame and Rebuilding Your Soul
On Goodreads a few months ago, I received a message: “You started reading ______________ 72 days ago. How is it going?” Embarrassing!
I know I have an issue here. I start reading a book and really like it, but then a friend tells me about another really good book so I start reading that one. Sigh!
When it comes to books, I’m like a kid in a candy store. I want to try a piece of that and that and that too.
So, this year I want to break this bad habit. I have set myself the goal of reading and FINISHING two books a month. I posted the goal on Goodreads so I’ll get little motivational pokes. And I’m telling you so you can poke me too. 
Today I want to tell you about one of the first books I finished (drumroll, please!) in January.
This book, Overcomer: Breaking Down the Walls of Shame and Rebuilding Your Soul made me laugh and cry and think and pray. Written by a delightful young woman and sister Redbud writer, this book takes on a topic that can be hard to talk about—shame related to sexual abuse. Aubrey Sampson does it with such grace and humor and compassion. And she doesn’t do it from an academic distance; she writes courageously about her own up-and-down battle.
Let me show you. On page 56 she writes:
As I sat on the side of the road that rainy afternoon, I felt that elusive presence in the car with me, and I was so tired of it. Shame was moving out of the shadows and into the foreground of my life, claiming too much emotional territory. Before I even recognized it, shame had become my constant companion, a dark and irritating tenant I couldn’t evict. I felt like an inmate, and shame had become my guard, locking me inside a prison of depression and distraction, and keeping me from true intimacy with my husband, my best friends, and God.
So I screamed at God. “I hate that you’re allowing me to feel this way! I hate that this stuff (definitely not the word I used) is still an issue for me after ten years. I hate that I am sill clinging to my past. And I’m sick of you not doing anything about it. Please, please, please, please, please, release me from my shame. I can’t live like this anymore. Do something!”
How grateful I am for women like Aubrey Sampson who find the courage and words to tell their stories of abuse and journey toward healing.
As I have come to know Aubrey over this past year, I have seen the truth of her words lived out in her life—these words in particular: “It doesn’t matter what has been done to us or what we’ve done to ourselves. There isn’t anything beyond the reach of God’s redemption” (p. 117).
Join me, would you, in encouraging this brave, young author?
You can find her book at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Overcomer-Breaking-Walls-Shame-Rebuilding/dp/0310342589
She is also on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liveshamelessly/?fref=ts
She blogs regularly here: http://www.aubreysampson.com/blog/
Oh, and I have two copies I would LOVE to give away. Contact me on my website: http://aftonrorvik.com/contact/
