Spanx And Shame

Spanx and Shame

Our ancestors Adam and Eve were created by a loving God and given free rein of the most lavishly beautiful resort imaginable. In Eden, they had all that they needed, but they wanted more. They disobeyed God by eating the one thing forbidden. Immediately they were made self-aware. They’d always been naked, but now they were naked and ashamed. This painful emotion drove them to seek cover. They hid, creating for themselves some pretty ridiculous camouflage: scratchy fig leaves sewn together as primitive undergarments.

If you think shame isn’t still driving us into hiding—then you’ve never met a pair of Spanx. These twenty-first-century industrial-strength fig leaves are an industry unto themselves—promising to smoothly cover every physical shortcoming imaginable. Tummy rolls. Thigh dimples. Even “bat wings” and back fat. (I am not kidding.) I haven’t seen it yet, but I imagine one day a full-body “glove” will exist that covers everything. Maybe it already does.

We’ve never stopped covering up. Sin and shame have not gone out of business. But God didn’t leave Adam and Eve in their flimsy fig leaves—and he won’t leave us in our Spanx. He covered the first couple, and he covers us, too. He replaced their sad and ineffective “camo” gear with animal skins in the Garden—the first record of bloodshed. But not the last:

This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

1 John 4:10

In other words, our God sees all that we would hide, and in love, covers us. No sin, no shame. And no Spanx required.

I sought the LORD, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed.

Psalm 34:4-5, NASB