Unashamed-The Gift of Shame

Just as my body would respond with loud pain if I broke my arm, so will my conscience speak very loudly with shame in the case of wrongdoing so that I will take the necessary steps of healing. Shame is not a state to cultivate or an emotion to be paralyzed in-though Satan would choose to reveal it as such. Ironically, God uses our shame so that we can gloriously be redeemed to unashamedness. Shame should have directional movement. Shame could be discribed as the current that helps to flow the river from past sin through the present repentence and restoration to future grace.
Just a few weeks ago, I was watching the Chicago Morning News to learn of an elderly couple found in their home, nearly dead. As I watched the story unfold, I was amazed to learn of the reason for their entrappment. This elderly couple were serious hoarders. Authorities mentioned that when they enetered the home they found that from ceiling to floor was trash. This couple lacked in the ability to throw things away; the natural receptor that would cause most people to throw things away as they deemed them unusable or rotten was lacking in the lives of this elderly couple. They reasoned that the trash they were keeping was not trash, but indeed things that they needed in their lives to help settle their souls from fear of losing everything and having nothing. Unfortunately, the very trash they hoarded to heal their souls was the trash that nearly took their lives. For nearly four days, the couple was trapped under an avalanche of trash.
As I sat amazed-and quite frankly chuckling-at the situation, I was reminded of how my soul really is no different than this elderly couple. I am a hoarder of expectations and selfishness. I soothe shame by surrounding myself with sin. I reason such thoughts and emotions away forcing my mind to believe I “need” such. I am sinking in the trash that surrounds me. Sadly, I am slowly being trapped by my own shame.
I wonder at what point the elderly couple switched form thinking that the stuff they had been hoarding was healthy for them and stuff of which they needed, to the undeniable wish and desire to have all the stuff lifted from them? To what extent must shame take us before we respond with a call for help?