Wearing Our Sack Cloth – Healthy Transparency
My kids have always been creative with their wardrobes. I think it’s from our early homeschooling days when there were no dress codes. They could be Spiderman or hang out in their pajamas all day.
After our oldest had entered public school, I found him laying out a plaid button up shirt, bow tie, and sport coat to wear the following day. “It’s style day tomorrow,” he said enthusiastically. I figured it was some sort of school spirit day, but he clarified, “No, I’m just having my own style day!” Concerned he might be the target of less than flattering comments, I was relieved when he told me the next day that everyone loved it. I still tend to avoid giving fashion advice today, as my kids are all very unique stylistically and what they wear tends to express who they are. And my husband? Well, the next twenty-seven years probably won’t fix what’s been broken the past twenty-seven.
I think it could sometimes be helpful if our clothing expressed who we are on the inside. In Biblical times, this was sometimes done by wearing sackcloth. A mourner would wear rough cloth which had been woven from goat or camel hair. It was thick, coarse fabric that was both uncomfortable and noticeable. It was typically used for storing things – hence the name sack cloth. It was also a sign of submission or self-humiliation. There are many times in Scripture where God’s people wore it as an outward expression of their hearts’ posture during times of repentance and seeking God’s favor or provision.
In social media’s world of unrealistic portrayals of life, I always find it refreshing when someone is okay putting their pain out there as well. There are many benefits of being open – in an appropriate, intentional way – about our pain. Heather Riggelman beautifully said, “Maybe if we still wore sackcloth and ashes, people would understand the grief we are still experiencing.” It can help others in similar situations identify with us and help bear our burdens. In this way, it humanizes us.
There is great power in telling our story, and many times it initiates our healing process when we are hurting. Brene Brown says, “If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” K. J. Ramsey agrees, “You were never meant to crawl your way out of the pit of stress and shame alone. We were created to walk the path of regulation together to guide our bodies back home from stress and shutdown to feeling safe and social again.”
There is also much danger in hiding our story, keeping us chained to the hurt and shame we have experienced. Some have described hiding our emotions and experiences as filling an imaginary black bag with items that weigh us down. Each of us is born with a small, empty black bag, and when we experience hurt or pain, we usually stuff it in the black bag. Hurts, shame, feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, pain, fear, anxiety – we keep stuffing them in the bag. Eventually the bag grows large and heavy, but we’re attached to it, so we continue lugging it around. And every once in a while, we explode – and all those items we’ve stuffed in our bag come tumbling out.
The solution to unloading our black bag is to name the things inside and uncover what we’ve hidden along the away. Not by sharing every detail on social media, but by talking with an empathic listener we trust. It doesn’t have to be a therapist, although I have benefitted from processing things with mine. Grief and pain are better dealt with when we speak them than when we stuff them. Our audience can be a trusted friend, small group of people that we do life with, or a support group. People with whom we can wear our sackcloth until our heart heals. People who will walk with us from our shame to shalom in Christ. People who will gently help bear our burdens. And who knows? God might use our openness to help unload someone else’s black bag – and remind us that one of the beautiful aspects of following Jesus is that we do not follow him alone.
