by Ed Ostrom

Created on: July 04, 2008

One day the young man on the Suicide Prevention line said to me, "I am like Lady Macbeth!" When I asked him what he meant, he said, "Every time I look at my hands I say, "Out dam able spot out!" When I asked him to explain what he meant, he said, "Every time I look at my hands I see the blood!" When I asked him whose blood, he confessed it was the blood of his wife. Seven years before his wife and him had gone to a dance. His wife danced with a stranger the whole night and would not dance with him. When they got home, he beat his wife so badly that he almost kills her. She left him that night, and he never saw her again. She never reported him to the police. But his life after that was profoundly scarred and marked. He developed an obsessive compulsive disorder. He would not wash his hands in a sink because he feared being contaminated by the water running through the pipes. He had sought help through many sources but found nothing that could help him. His life was filled with toxic shame. As I listened to him that night my heart longed to help him. Calling him by name I told him he was suffering from shame but God could help him with his shame. He said to me, "Don't tell me about God, show me God!" When I asked him how I could show him God he asked me to come and take him for a hamburger. I agreed to co9me the next noon hour.

When I got to his apartment to pick him up I was shocked out of my socks. His unkempt hair hung below his waist. His beard was scraggily and hung down to his belt. His hands were covered in a number of pairs of surgical gloves, but through them I noticed his finger nails were curled like the talons of an eagle. I was so thankful that MacDonald's had a Drive Through because I am sure that we would not have been served in side the restaurant. As we sat outside in my van we talked for a couple of hours. That day my friend called on God and God begin to deal with the toxic shame in his life. It is a long story but a psychiatrist in another city agreed to take my friend on and assist him with his problem. Six months later I met the same man in another city where he was living. His hair was cropped in a brush cut style, he was cleanly shaved. He was singing in a Church choir and helping to teach a Sunday school class. He made me a cup of tea, and before making the tea he washed his hands in the kitchen sink. As I left his home that day my mind remembered the Biblical Story of Jesus delivering a man called Legion of demons. Mark 5 tells us that

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