What Do Donuts and Shame Have in Common?

Join hosts Cyle, Cody, and Ryan as they tackle the crucial difference between guilt and shame through hilarious personal stories and genuine pastoral wisdom. From lost snorkel masks to a legendary Krispy Kreme incident, they explore how confession, community, and faith help us move from paralyzing shame to healthy accountability. Whether you're struggling with past mistakes or just need a reminder that you're not alone, this conversation offers both laughter and practical steps toward healing.

Transcript

 Hello and welcome to the HOTL cast. I'm Cyle. I'm Cody. I'm Ryan. And I'm back from Florida. 

Yeah, 

so I was gone. How 

was Florida? 

It was, it was warmer, 

warm. I'm freezing 

right now, actually. I'm freezing as we sit in the basement of the hollow house. Cold 

been cold all week. Uh, yeah. 

So, no, it was good. It was, we had fun.

I had some event. Uh, very eventful things happen in my life. There you 

went snorkeling. 

Went snorkeling. I went, uh, 

boating, went jet skiing. You got you. You were officially, you're like, Paul, you're officially in a shipwreck. 

No, it wasn't a shipwreck. 

It was, it was, it was close enough. 

No, but yeah. 

Did you claim 

it?

But let's, um, no, it's kind of, I talked about winter on Sunday. It means you didn't listen to the sermon again. Yeah. 

What are you talking about? 

Because I, I talked about my 

Yeah, your snorkeling experience lost your snorkel. 

You, 

you talked about guilt and shame. 

Yeah. What else? What else? 

Well, there's a podcast.

Are 

all the things we said? The podcast. Thanks, mark. Mark was just farming the conversation before this to know what the sermon was about. Yeah. No. 

Mark has Chet, GBT. You listen to the sermons? 

No, I read the description of when I uploaded it again. 

Mark, you have to listen to it. Yeah. Yep. You should be ashamed of that.

Um, I feel guilty, but not ashamed. 

I did a bad thing's. I'm not a bad persons. We, we did though talk about guilt and shame. I shared a story that happened to me. Um, just kind of recap. I went snorkeling, uh, with friends from church that lived down. I have a place down in Florida and, uh, dumbed me. The second time I jumped in the water.

After successfully snorkeling, dozens of times in my life I lost my mask 'cause I didn't put my hand on the mask when I jumped in, which is kind of like a. A newbie issue, but I had it, my hands lost it 'cause my hands were slippery with anti-fog stuff. So I just, I watched it descend to the depths of the ocean and it was like uhoh.

And so that was bad enough. The issue got got worse when I tried. Later after lunch we got back in to swim with a turtle and um, I tried to help Patty clean her mask, being the nice, wonderful, loving husband that I am so. I put the anti-fog stuff in it, leaned over the edge of the, of the boat, got water in it, but the door was open to jump in and a wake wake hit the boat, shook the boat, rocked the boat.

So I grabbed the, I grabbed the boat to study myself so I didn't fall in 'cause I had flippers on. And because let go of the mask down to the bottom of the ocean. So the good news is it'll be foggy. Yeah. On the bottom of the ocean. It'll be fog free. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's anti 

fogged up. 

And so it was just, it was a stupid funny thing.

I mean, it was funny. It's funny now, it probably wasn't funny for the people that let me borrow the stuff at the time. And uh, I think that Mike, who I was with was like, yeah, I've never seen somebody lose one mask, let alone too. Oh yeah. So they're gonna send you. I said, now you have, now you have, that's me.

So I'm gonna send you an invoice. 

And I was just talking to basically about. About, I felt guilty for losing those. So immediately I ordered two more, had 'em shipped to their house. They got 'em, we pushed, there you go. You got, but also that kind of led us into conversation about guilt and shame. You know, people feel guilty about things, but they also feel ashamed of who they are because of the things that they've done in their life.

And so, Cody, you've had some moments where you've, you've really kind of had to work through this like one time and. In, uh, pigeon Forge, Tennessee. 

I, I would say that, that what you're talk, okay. First of all, way to target me in this podcast already. Okay. I 

flipped the screen. 

I think he's just trying to help you.

Here's the deal. Here's the deal. Uh, there was, this is to 

help people. 

You were, help people. You were there, okay. 

Yeah. 

You, you have full knowledge of what happened. Okay. 

So essentially Cody was, we were all going on a, we were doing a couples trip. With two married couples, and Cody and Bethany. This was before they were, they were married and we went to stay in a lodge.

Now they were staying separate, like they weren't staying together. 

And why? Why did 

we go on this trip? We were going because Cody was secretly planning to propose to Bethany in. Under this waterfall, this beautiful waterfall up, a hike in the mountains. We were all gonna go and be there, take pictures. And it was that we successfully completed that adventure.

Yes, we did. 

Um, but we kind of made this rule, said, we made this rule back. She, spoiler 

alert, I was swearing. She 

said, 

yes. Spoiler 

alert. Yeah. She wasn't gonna be able to get back in the car. Um, 

she hit her head on a rock, 

but at some point back. 20 years ago, we made a rule just goly that anytime you pass a Krispy Kreme donuts with a hot and ready sign on, you 

must, this is actually a contractual part of our friendship.

Stop. Yeah. Like, you must stop, like we, we, we put this in writing that like, if, if the hot and ready sign is on, you gotta stop 

at least good. 

You have to stop. Like that's, 

and so we were down in Pigeon Forge. There is a Krispy Kreme and so I think we had passed it once. The sign wasn't on. So we're, 

we went on a hike.

We went on a hike, came back later. Cody's in the trunk of the car because we didn't wanna drive two cars to, to where we were going. So Cody's just like, I'll just get the trunk. That's the thing in Cody's life. Lots 

of checks out. No, no. Check this, it makes sense. We only rented one vehicle when we got there.

Like it wasn't like a. Hey, Cody's in the trunk, because we couldn't, we didn't wanna take two. It was like we took one car. It 

wasn't like a old 

truck. It was like we couldn't splurge to get a three, three rope seat, so we're just gonna make Cody sit in the back. Don't act like it's some luxury item. I'm just like, oh.

It 

was like, it was like a little tiny SUV, so it was, Cody was like laying the trunk. It's an trunk 

Equinox, 

like 

I'm like. Crammed in there like a mummy, 

but we're dri we're driving. So it was, it was fine. So Cody's driving and so we see the Krispy Kreme donuts hot and ready side on. So we're like, well, we gotta stop, we gotta stop, we gotta get some donuts.

So we stop. Each couple decides to order donuts. So the two of us ordered like a dozen donuts and I think Cody and Bethany got a dozen donuts. Mixed. Mixed. The rest of us just got the G glazed, but they're hot and ready glaze. They're just like butter. Yeah, you can eat all, you can eat all 12 of 'em. And, uh, if, you know, without even noticing it.

Yeah. So we are in the drive-through. We get the donuts. By the time we get all the donuts, we have four 

boxes. We ended up getting four boxes. 

We got four boxes. Yeah. So, and we pull outta the drive-thru. We, we all get our donuts, Cody's in the trunk Somehow Cody got handed a box of donuts in the trunk and 

we, it was, it was Bethany and i's.

Dozen, two dozen to, I think we had a dozen or so to share 

Yeah. That we had 

gotten. 

So we are more than a minute down the street. Like we, we had just pulled outta the driveway. 

Okay. And we're driving down the street. That's an exaggeration. We were, we went, we had been driving for more than a minute. Okay.

Maybe, maybe two minutes. 

It was longer than that. Not kidding. We'll just say two minutes. 

Not 

kidding. It was longer than that. Okay. 

You could ask Bethany. She'll confirm. Four, five, at 

least two minutes. 

Yeah. Cody, then from the trunk. 

No, listen, you stopped. We all had had these Krispy Kreme notes. We're like, these are amazing.

Right? If you've ever had a hot and ready Krispy Kreme. Yeah. You know the feeling, right? If you haven't. You're uncultured, go get a crispy hot and ready Krispy Kreme. Okay. 

They're hard to find 

here. They're hard to find. There's some in Grandin Rapids anyways. Yeah, I know that. That's fine. So it's next to a Chick-fil-A.

It's fine. Uh, you, so we had all had one and we're like, oh, that's amazing. And you guys were like, oh yeah, it's really good 

that you know, I'm driving, I'm driving in time. So everybody was just gonna have their donut. So we all had our donut. We're driving. So it's about the time that all of us took to eat one donut.

Like it's not, it takes seconds to eat a donut. It's not long. So it was really quick and we're still on the main drag and all of a sudden from the trunk, Cody just, 

Bethany asks, Hey, that sounds, that was good. I think I'll have another. 

And Cody goes, I've just done something shameful. He literally ate the entire box 

of donuts.

All of them. They're gone. Like, it was like, you could, it was like, okay, sushi in my defense. Okay. In my defense, hot and ready. Krispy Kres are basically liquid. Okay? They, you just, you know, they melt in your mouth. They're amazing. I, I lost track. I don't know what happened. I blacked out. All I know is there's.

Is insane Cream. The, the glaze black. We're all like, we 

only had time to eat one. How did you eat all those donuts? '

cause I, listen, I just, I had an affinity for, for Krispy Kreme donuts. Bethany still talks 

about this, like, she's like, she's like, I've never in my life wanted two donuts. '

cause Bethany's tiny.

She's 

like, 

I 

really, 

really 

wanted two donuts. And she's like, I was gonna splurge and Cody ate all the donuts. It's like, yeah, I was shocked. 

Yeah, I still think they didn't give us all the hall 12, but whatever. 

Yeah. I don't think 11 is any, any really more to be proud of. It's like, oh eight, only 11, so, 

so yeah, that, that's a good example of.

I was just a bad person there. 

Yep. Do you feel guilty about that or are 

you 

ashamed of that? 

No, I that, I mean, I've worked, I've processed, I've had counseling since then, so I've processed through some of that shame and guilt worked through it, so, 

yeah. 

But I'm good now. 

Yeah. 

So that's, that's Cody's interesting story.

So we've, we've had some moments in life that, you know. We're not the proudest of Yeah. Yeah. That we, we often get a share on things like this or around stages with people, but the reality is, I mean, I've been thinking about all week since I got back from Florida just about, I get the opportunity to get up and basically counsel myself by telling people my stupidity, my sins, my struggles.

And there is, there is a healing in that. I mean. Some of the advice I had somebody ask me like, what do I do to work through shame? I said, talk to people. Talk to people about it. Like tell people about it. Like go to a counselor and talk. Talk to a pastor, like talk, tell people, tell 'em your struggles. Try to come up with plans.

Have people follow up with you. Like I said, that's what I do from the stage. I like talk about the things that I'm experiencing going through, and I said there is a healing in that. Like now everybody knows this. Thing that happened to me, so I don't need to be ashamed about it. The whole world knows I lost two masks.

Like how many people in the world have done that? Not many. So I'm gonna, I'm an elite club there. Not many people have eaten a box of Krispy Kreme donuts in that quick of a timeframe. 

I actually don't think that's, I don't think that's true. I think there's probably a lot of people who have eaten Krispy Kre that quick.

Okay. 

Raise your hand in 

this 

room. 

So this is a small sample size. You go to a hundred people, there's gonna be at least 12. Okay? 

Yeah. Yeah. A dozen. This sticking in your mind 

for a 

reason. 

I mean, I probably eat a half a dozen at one time, 

but 

I 

don't know about 11. 

Saying. I mean, it's just, it's, I mean, it's really about not judging.

Do you have the constitution? Like do you have the, the will and the desire Yeah. To see it. To see it happen. And I did. 

Yeah. 

I'm proud of you. 

Yeah. And he, I can't do it again. 

I think I 

what. Only hot and ready though. Yeah. Okay. Let's just be clear. Okay. 

I think it's, 

I'm not a monster. 

I think as the Taco King, I could keep up with that.

So, 

yeah. I I thought you were gonna do better as Taco 

King too. Actually, I was a little dis. We had 

an 

eating 

cup show. Saturday was shameful. How few tacos you actually ate? 

I was sick to my stomach 'cause I had been sick, horribly sick on Thursday. Yeah. And all I wanted. To do was like puke the whole time 

and he was 

only 

one taco 

behind.

And I was only one taco behind you. 

I was cleaning 

up all the pieces that kept 

falling off though. Yeah, I did. I did keep cra like picking up those, I'll 

give you that. 

So I tried to make sure nothing was left. 

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. 

Excuse. I didn't, I didn't properly prepare. I should have, I should have, could you just 

give us an excuse.

Yeah, 

I should have, I should have drank tons of water the day before to help the stomach expand. Yeah. Instead, I had the extra room, but I did not do the proper, I didn't even preparations Joey. Joey 

would be, should have watched oshi videos first. I didn't even research research. I said, Joey Chester, how to eat, 

eat more.

So 

I may have learned this in various times in my life. 

Yeah. But for those of you listening, our men's ministry, our men's discipleship group. Put on a meal for, for the church. And it was great. The pastors competed. Pastors had a competing competed for an eating contest in Mark won. 

So now I get to keep the t-shirt till next year.

Yeah. King, 

he's 

the Taco King. 

Yeah. Taco King is my new title. 

You have to wear that T. New achievement to Lucero's every time you go. Yeah. 

Okay. Will do. 

No, but I mean, so this is what I've been thinking about. I mean, they're really thinking about like, how do people process through moments in life? Like I lived through, because I lived through those moments a lot.

I got lots of more stories to tell, um, even from that trip. So things happen to me that's a regular part of life, but how do we help people feel safe to walk through guilt and shame and what's the difference? And really what we shared on Sunday in the sermon is that guilt. Guilt is really when you, you say like, I did a bad thing and I need to resolve it.

I need to make it right. Shame is when you start believing, I'm a bad person. I'm, I'm evil, I'm, I'm flawed, I'm broken. And those are different things. Yeah. Guilt. Guilt is, is healthy. Shame is not. Shame comes from the enemy tries to destroy us from within. And God doesn't want us to feel shame. God wants us to feel guilt, like, Hey, this is how you're supposed to live.

That's what the Bible tells us. Live this way. When you don't feel guilty, move forward. You know, resolve it with forgiveness, with mercy, with grace, uh, with Jesus, and be a better you. Shame says, I'm ultimately broken. Nobody can. You know, love me. Nobody can he heal me. Nobody can fix me. And that's a problem that we need to 

right.

Really deal with at a deeper level. And so God does not want Christians to be ashamed. He wants them to find their, their worth, their value, their label in Him. And what he says about us is that we are fearfully and wonderful made. We are wonderful creations. We are child. Uh, and what we're children of a king.

We, we are sons and daughters of, of a Lord. It's, we have great value. The Bible establishes that we have worth and value and we, God has a plan for us. 

Yeah, 

that's what the Bible says about us. The world wants us to feel awful and terrible and broken and flawed and sinful, and. And that's not, that's shame.

Yeah. And we need to be understanding of if we're living in shame, we need to move through that and find healthy ways and community to help us get outta shame and deal with our shame. 

Yeah. Well 'cause shame makes, makes it so that it's fine that I keep doing it 'cause it's just who I am. 

Yeah. 

Shame turns it into It can, right?

It can, yeah. It can turn it into wall. I'm just 

so broken. I'm just, 

yeah. I'm gonna keep, well, I might as well just keep doing it. 'cause that's just who I am. I'm a 

terrible sinner. I might as well keep inning, you know? 

Whereas, so it wants to keep digging you deeper Yeah. And keep you stuck in it. 'cause I can't do any better.

I, I'm, I'm not able to do better. Yeah. Whereas when you wait, let the guilt kind of sit on you, but you realize it's not who you are, it kind of pushes you to do better next time as opposed to keep digging down. Like, I know that's what I mentally would want to do when I was in a shameful place. I'm like, that's just, I just keep making mistakes.

Yeah. So that's just, that's just who I am. Like there's nothing else to it, which is not the truth, but because I got myself to that point where that's what made sense. I kind of allowed myself to make the mistakes. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. I like that. You know, as I was thinking, I as you're saying that, I'm kind of thinking like, I know, I know a lot of my life, like, you know, I have this shame, like maybe it's, maybe it's things I've done that I'm not proud of.

Maybe it's things that I've experienced, but then I have a tendency in the past to, to deny that shame that ever happened, right? And so, 'cause I wanna look good, I wanna show up. I don't want the world to, to know that I'm like. Feeling broken and like, you know, like that, that idea that I am no good, right?

Not that I've made bad choices, but I'm no good. I want, I don't want the world to see that, right? And so I deny that and I, and I try really hard to look good. And, and what happens with that? Is it, it doesn't work and then I end up doing things like, like lying or maybe it's addiction or, or, or maybe it's just risky behavior.

Lots of different things. And then guess what? I got more shame from there. So then I have shame on top of shame. On top of shame. Mm-hmm. And it's just this, like, this cycle? 

Yeah. Like snowballs. 

Yeah. 

Where it just gets to the point where you don't even feel like you know what's actually going on. 

Yeah. Well it's that sense of, of shame in my, in, in how I have it is, is shame can, can really, if people, you know, you don't pull that bandaid off and, and, and confess that to God.

And, and another, another godly person in your life. I mean, shame is, is that snowball. That, that steals who we are and before we know it, we're running through life. 

Yeah. 

Pretending that we're not pretending to be somebody else. 

Yeah. And I think shame breeds in darkness. Like when you, when people don't, when when you live in, in secret or you live and people don't know the things about you that you are ashamed of, you just stay stuck there.

That's why I think, you know, the process I've been thinking through is, why don't I. Feel worse about these stupid things that I do or happen to me, it's because I, I talk about it. So everybody in my life, all the people that I know, they learn about it. And then there's nothing to be ashamed of. Once everybody, once it's all out, what, what are you gonna be ashamed about now?

Everybody, it's out there. It's sometimes it's a worry of getting found out. That leads us most into the shame. It's like, I don't want people to know that I did this, or I'm this broken in this way, or I'm this sinful, or I'm addicted to this. And the truth is, the more people that you tell about it, the easier it is to walk through it because.

Now you're in a process of healing and moving forward and you take that to the Lord and take to the people who love the Lord, who love you and walk through it and you begin to break that shame cycle in your life. 

Yeah, I, I think that shame always gives permission for more sin and that. When you have guilt, it pushes you towards accountability, right?

Like, like I think shame is inaction and guilt is action. Like to, to resolve sin. It's like when you think about it, shame, just like I've just, I've, I think about it a lot. Like for me, shame is just this place where I just go. Whew. You know, like I've got paralysis analysis of like, okay, I did this and this is all that, you know, and then where I go if I have guilt, it's like, okay, I did this.

I have to make it right. And it's, it's the difference of like, okay, I can attack this versus I'm defeated by this. Mm. I think that's really, that's, to me, that's especially when the scripture talks about it, it talks about freedom, like victory over sin. Like, it's like this act of, you know, like we have to take hold in.

Defeat. Right? When we know what, when we have an awareness of that sin, we have to take action to defeat it. Right? And it's like shame is just like the inaction, it almost disarms you against whatever it is because it just gives you excuse to continue on and what you're doing. Yeah. 

No, that's good. So, I 

mean, 

really the, the thought is if you're struggling with guilt, you're struggling with shame, you know, take steps to do something about it.

I mean, shame is something we, as followers of Jesus Christ, we should not be living in shame. But the truth is, a lot of, there's a lot of Christians who are struggling with shame. Shame from their past, shame from their. Present and, and you just have to deal with it. And you gotta recognize that guilt is a healthy thing.

It's okay to say, I did a bad thing. I need to resolve that with a person or with my God and re be restored and made new 'cause. God makes us new creations as he forgives us and wipes us clean from our sin. But like the shame, it's a longstanding, it's a building. It's kinda that snowball thing that you're talking about where it's just, it's compiling and compiling and compiling and you've gotta break that cycle or it's just gonna compile to where you don't know what to do.

And I think the best thing for us to do is, is find a safe community and hopefully for you, your life group, your Bible study, this community, there are pastors can be a safe place for you to talk about and say. Hey, this is my struggle and I need, I need to, I need help. Yeah. I need help. Get through it. 

Yeah.

What, you know, and it's interesting too, you know, right along that same lines, how, how often everybody has shame, but how often, at least me and you know, I can be like, oh, you have no idea how bad my shame is. Like if you, if you saw my shame, oh no. Like I'm eternally like, you know, broken and, and I, and I. I spent a lot of time talking on the phone with people with the same mentality, and it's amazing that this isn't everybody problem.

Right. Right. And, and the, and that flutter, right. That, that. That that wall that people hit is just saying it out loud. Right? Because we think if we say out all our, our shame out loud, that the world's gonna, like going to, um, just cast us out. In reality, in my experience anyways, when, when I say my shame out loud, people go, how could you say your shame out?

I wanna tell you mine. Yeah. You know, I mean, there'd be a line around the corner to tell you, tell you shame you I could feel 

better by, by trumping your shame. With my shame. Yeah. I mean, but the truth is. It's, it's the secret. It's the, it's the unrevealed that keeps us down. And if we just start revealing it, I mean it, yes, there's probably people that say, will say why people know my, my stuff and I still have shame.

Yeah. Then you need to probably talk to a professional, talk to a counselor, talk to a pastor, and really walk through that. Um, Christians are living in shame. Even then. They know what the Bible says about who we are, and it's really because they haven't taken those steps to walk through it. And that's where the church can come alongside of you with resources, with pastors with.

With counselors to help. And if you're, if you've been trying to deal with this on your own and you're not moving forward, it's time to try to find the right help. We believe in professional biblical counseling. We have a counselor we recommend all the time. We think it's good. We think it's healthy. Many of our, our staff have have met with the counselor that, uh, that we use and 'cause we think it's great.

He's a great guy and he's great advice. He's been super helpful to many of the couples and families in our church and individuals. And so get help. If you're listening to this, you're like, I'm struggling. Get help. And if you need us to help you, we'll be glad to help you. We'll be glad to point you in the direction.

We'll, glad to get you a number or a referral and we'll even help pay for a couple sessions if you can't afford it. We believe in that much. Shame destroys people. It destroys communities, it destroys relationships, and it destroys the church. And we don't want to be a church where people are living in shame.

We wanna be a church where we're, we're glorifying the Lord, we're made new. Um, because he makes us new and his mercies are new every morning for us. 'cause he loves us continually and, and continually can make us new in him. So if you're struggling with guilt, if you're struggling with shame, please reach out to us if you need help or just find someone in your circle that can love you through it and give you a chance to talk about it and take steps to see who you are in Christ and not who you are in shame.

Thanks for listening. We'll catch you on the next episode of the Hot Cast.