My relationship with the entire stay-at-home daughter phenomenon is complicated.įirst, it didn’t start with my parents. Writing books at twenty, when life is so much simpler than it will be at thirty, is a perilous undertaking. I’m no Josh Harris but I relate to so much of his I Kissed Dating Goodbye reflections. I’m embarrassed because I consider making staying home until marriage into a righteous movement instead of one valid option among many is a mistake that has caused myriad ripple effects of shame and insecurity in so many lives. I’m not perfectly content with it either, but I’ll write about that in a moment. I’m not embarrassed by the fact that I chose not to move out until I got married. It’s not something I talk about really often, frankly because I’m really embarrassed by it. I’ve already written about the stay-at-home daughter thing. But when people ask me if there’s anything about my upbringing that I regret, that’s when things get a little weird. I really am pretty normal, apart from being a huge dork.

The answer is, I grew up in a wonderful, imperfect family. What was it like growing up in the “perfect homeschool family.” How holy am I as a result of it?

I tease my husband that my childhood dreams of becoming a world-renowned author would come true the minute I committed to a tell-all book. Not because I have three heads or a third eye or a tail, but because my dad wrote books about strong, godly families and people are curious to see how his strong, godly daughter turned out. And in those places, may the voice of grace speak loudest.I’ve been told more than once that I’m shockingly normal. My hope is that this conversation might bring some light into our own corners of shame. Jasmine also gives us important ideas on how to notice and combat shame in our lives ultimately reminding us that grace is stronger than shame. Jasmine also shares about her own journey of shame’s influence in her life and the transformation that took place when she opened space for Jesus to speak into those places where shame dwelled. In my time with Jasmine, we talk about how scripts of perfectionism in Christian and popular culture can lead to shame. Jasmine’s latest book is called, Never Cast Out: How the Gospel Puts an End to the Story of Shame. She has written books such as Carved in Ebony: Lessons from the Black Women Who Shape Us and Mother to Son: Letters to A Black Boy on Identity and Hope. Jasmine Holmes is a teacher and author, committed to centering black stories in history. In today’s episode, Jasmine Holmes invites us to consider the influence shame has on our lives. And shame has all kinds of occasions to creep in the perceived wrongness of our body, our relationships status, our parenting, our career, and the list goes on. It’s not just a sense of guilt over something we did, but the wrongness of who we are. Shame is that all-encompassing, embodied, sinking feeling that we are wrong or bad.

Mother to son by jasmine holmes