“The truth is, we aren’t more ‘holy’ if we feel bad about ourselves when we do something wrong.” — Joyce Meyer

I still remember one of my first and strongest feelings of guilt. When I was a teenager, I made a stupid, dark joke at the expense of a guy who was wearing glasses. I didn’t want to hurt him. It came out of nowhere, probably just my way of trying to make someone laugh about their insecurity, like I had done for myself when battling my own diffidence.

Humor had always been part of my character, and combined with my directness, it didn’t always come out the way I intended.

I regretted it the moment I said those words. My friend, still in shock and not used to this kind of behavior from me, stared at me and gave me a well-deserved reprimand: “If I were you, I would’ve sunk into the ground,” she said. I nodded and instead, sank my mouth into silence.

I dragged the weight of guilt with me for years. It was too late for a mere “sorry.”

In the beginning, I would think about that moment at least once every few months. “What if I damaged his already fragile self-esteem? What if he hates how he looks?” I would obsess over all the worst possibilities.

I wouldn’t have been as worried if it had been a closer friend or one of my “bros” with whom we shared the same taste for nonsense clothed in humor. No, this guilt was heavy because I knew how insecure he was, how scared he was and how little self-respect he had. It was heavy because I could still see his disheartened face when he heard my stupid, little joke.

Over the years, busy with life’s jollier events, I almost forgot about my mistake. I would only remember it when I ran into a mutual acquaintance—but those were fleeting moment that I would easily dismiss from my memory.

Fifteen years later, I found myself grappling with a much heavier guilt. This time, it wasn’t a hasty joke or my humor. It was a kind of guilt that no one wants to carry in their soul—an imposed blame.

I had made a courageous decision to step forward and make a personal change. That choice turned into an emotional and psychological persecution. Those I expected to support me tried to drown me in guilt, judgment, and negativity. Sometimes indirectly, sometimes with condemning acts and words.

It weighed me down longer than it should have. I wasn’t carrying my own guilt; I was carrying the weight of someone else’s judgment, as if I’d let their version of who I should be define me. If I had been wiser then, I would have recognized the truth—I didn’t owe anyone that kind of blame.

Imposed guilt is never just guilt, especially if you were born and raised in a country where the pestilence of an enslaved past, fractured sovereignty and the cancer of communism have penetrated insidiously to the very core of the nation.

The moment you show you’re a non-conformist, or that you have a different point of view on any matter, the likelihood of being torn apart by a beast diminishes, because, before that happens, you will certainly be torn apart by a conformist—especially if you talk to them about freedom and love.

So, I ended up analyzing, dissecting and sewing up myself back again just to understand that the guilt I was feeling for making a choice was never actual guilt. 

It was an endless, desperate attempt to offer harmony and love to those who acted out of fear and self-inflicted slavery—dictatorship they had been freed from long ago.

The ones who wanted to pass me the torch of blame were actually trying to get rid of its flame. They’ve been surrounded by it for years, taught that they have to serve the “Great Dictator,” and then take his place.

In this case, the dictator didn’t have a country but a spiritual origin—the origin of fear.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Galatians 5:1, which says: 

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

In this sentence, the apostle Paul is reminding the Christians in Galatia that, as believers in Christ, they aren’t bound to follow the laws or to be slaves to pressure and restrictions of men who put traditions and rules before God’s love.

It is one of the most revolutionary, rebellious thoughts I’ve ever read and felt. It’s not just a thought. It’s a call to freedom. 

My journey of continuous guilt for something I hadn’t done—or had every right to do—ended with a simple and kind whisper from God: “Stop feeling guilty about everything.”

It probably wasn’t the first time God had interrupted my hamster wheel routine of running in circles of secondhand blame.

He used people, verses, songs, Psalms, articles to teach me that I shouldn’t care about what people think of me or how they perceive me. I still couldn’t get past the wearisome feeling.

I fought my whole youth against false authorities, against patronizing superiority and title-based dominance. Yet it took one turbulent period in life to fall victim to it and one whisper from God to get rid of the slavery I had always resisted.

I have now reached a delightful stage of indifference! I urge you to do that too. Stop feeling guilty about everything. Let go of the unnecessary guilt you carry. Especially when it’s not yours to bear.

Quote of the day:

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
1 John 4:18