What it means to live Unafraid and Unashamed

Yesterday I was feeling restless. I had anxiety about a number of things including my career, family, and societal contribution.

I reached out to my daily accountability partner via text to put words to my emotions. Then I decided to attend an online 12 Step Meeting. A few minutes into the meeting the inspiration came very strong to immediately hang up and call a former sponsor.

I had no idea he was going through very significant stressful struggles in his family life. We talked and mourned what he was going through.

Recovery isn’t a continual path of ease in the sense that all things are easily surmounted by faith, like a cheat code in a video game. Instead, I’ve found God needs me to live Unashamed and Unafraid of my past so that I can be open and vulnerable and present. Emotionally connected. Confident that recovery “works when I work it”. Because instead of wallowing in my self pity yesterday, I was able to sit in another’s pain.

Living a life Unashamed and Unafraid started for me with sharing my story on this podcast. It continued with me sharing my episode with my local Church group, family, and friends. Dismantling the pose of supposed perfection I had worn as a mask, I now lead with vulnerability and honesty.

For each of us the journey of how we live Unashamed and Unafraid will be different, but what unites us is the cause, the driving desire to live a life free of a secretive dark past. A focus on forward progress over pretended perfection.

What no one warned me about is that in recovery I would learn how to not only confront my own traumas, but to be able to lift others burdens as I mourn with them.

… Okay, I guess Christ did warn us of that but I somehow missed how much depth and beauty, sorrow and sadness, hope and humility the grieving process for myself and others would bring.

To be Christian is to be like Christ. To shoulder up alongside Him for my own healing and to have Him use me to help others just as others have delivered me from dark times indeed.

Statistically, many of us have abandoned any New Year’s resolutions if we even made any. But I invite us all to continue the charge to be Unashamed and Unafraid of our past. To be Unashamed and Unafraid of living our lives out loud, proclaiming our healing in the wings of Christ who has restored our souls. And to reach up and then reach out and help those around us.

By Pete, Writing Team