Naked & Unashamed: Lessons From a Summer of Refinement

This summer was hot — not just in temperature, but in testing. The kind of heat that doesn’t just tan your skin but burns off your fig leaves.

Genesis 2:25 says Adam and Eve were “naked and unashamed.” But if I’m honest, I’ve spent too much of my life covering up — with perfectionism, with busyness, with shame. Summer stripped some of that away. It purified me, refined me, and left me standing in the uncomfortable light of God’s truth.

And yet, that’s exactly where freedom is.

Transparency doesn’t mean telling the world every detail of your struggle. It means refusing to hide behind masks. It means saying, “Yes, I was there. Yes, I fell. But look what God has done.” It means sharing the story not just of the problem but of the healing.

This summer, I learned:

🌞 Heat reveals what can’t stand.

🌿 Purification makes room for harvest.

🫶🏽 Shame has no place where grace lives.

Now as the autumn equinox approaches, I’m preparing for an internal harvest. Spiritually, it’s a season of gathering what God planted months ago: discipline, resilience, trust. Emotionally, it’s a season of resting in my boundaries, letting them protect me rather than resenting them. Physically, it’s a season of stewarding my health like it matters — because it does.

If summer was stripping, fall is ripening.

So I step into this new season naked & unashamed, knowing that my scars tell stories and my transparency makes room for healing. If He burned off my fig leaves, it’s only so I can stand clothed in grace.

✨ Thank you, Summer, for purifying me. Hello, Fall — I’m ready to harvest.