*Note: I wrote this a while back and didn't know whether I should post it or not. After seeing others suffering the same, I thought I'd share. Below are my deepest thoughts and pieces of my heart laid out in text for you to read.
I believe I haven't been completely honest with myself and those who read my blog. I wanted to present a version of myself that didn't exist. A woman who had her life together, her heart protected, and her smile perfectly perched on a joyful countenance. I thought I was wise and filled with confidence and great advice for any and every kind of situation. But truth hit hard this summer when I discovered there was so much more to myself that needed healing.
As I peeled back the thick layers of plastic happiness, cheap smiles, and shallow confidence, I found a girl who had been hoarding little whispers of rejection, small gestures of being unwanted, talks here and there of never being enough, little piles of loneliness, and tiny murmurs of friendless memories until it was all that was in my heart and all I could hear.
You see, growing up with parents in the army I had discovered two things about myself: (1) I absolutely LOVE traveling and (2) that I was slowly wilting inside from the many wounds of rejection upon my heart. Moving around every 1.5 to 3 years was never enough time to form lasting friendships. Even worse, the few friends I had made I never knew if they were real or imaginary. I'm not saying they were fake friends, I just never knew what a real friend was like because I never had the chance to make a friendship that lasted more than three years.
So what does this have to do with this past summer? Well... I never knew the hold rejection had taken upon me all these years... Slowly embedding its thick, deep roots, until I allowed myself a moment of vulnerability when I told a guy I liked him.
I won't go into all the details (not much really...), but after one quick date (or so I think it was a date) and a few promising texts... It had all disappeared as swiftly as it had come. It had faded and ended with a silent rejection so loud it was deafening. The worst part? I still had to face him at church.
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| Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash |
The power of silent rejection is quite strong. It leaves a big dark void, a nasty little fill in the blank, where your darkest nightmares and thoughts can easily tuck themselves in and parade as the truth. Thoughts like:
- you're unwanted
- you're not good enough
- you're not loved
- you've been cast aside
- you're not pretty
- you're intolerable
- you're not smart enough
- you're unimpressive
- you're uncared for
- you're not important
The list is long and ugly. You get the idea. These are the thoughts that had started to fill my mind and the lies I had started to believe. That silent rejection had awakened all the rejections I have been holding onto from the past. They had coupled together to form this giant beast. That little silent rejection had become a loud roaring lion.
So with such a big enemy within me, I did the only thing I could do: I prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and I looked to the Bible for wisdom and truth that I would now like to share with you. You see, that silent rejection turned out for good. It helped me to see where I needed God the most in my life and showed me a part of myself I had buried deep and had slapped a band-aid on thinking I had fixed it all by myself. A part that was scared, lonely, forgotten, and hopeless. He wanted to fill that part of me. To comfort me. To let me know he cared for me, that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't forgotten, that I am made in his image, that I am worth the death of his only son Jesus Christ because he loved me so much.
Without realizing, I was trying to fill that void with other people when I needed to fill it with Jesus. Below is a list of some common lies that I found came attached to rejection followed by the truths that helped destroy this roaring monster.
Lies
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Truths
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I am not pretty enough.
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I am beautiful inside and out.
Genesis 1:27 – So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (NIV)
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I am alone and not wanted.
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Oh, you have no idea how wanted and loved you are! John 3:16 is plastered everywhere from the bottom of Forever 21 shopping bags to bumper stickers on cars. That verse is not for those who haven’t accepted Christ yet, its there as a reminder for you too!
Also check out: 1 Samuel 12:22, Matthew 28:20, 1 Peter 5:7, and Psalm 68 5:7 to just name a few.
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I am alone.
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I am destined for loneliness.
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You are destined for greatness! Right now, God is working, carefully stitching His master plan, in and for you.
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I am broken.
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Psalm 147:3 – He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
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In this life, rejection will always be a part of it whether it's from a failed relationship, a turned down job offer, a friendship, family, your date or crush, etc. Sometimes these rejections come with answers and sometimes they do not. No matter the type of rejection you face, never let it define you. God loves you no matter what you think your rejections say about you. Let Him heal your broken heart.
Rejection is too massive a topic with such extensive emotional damage to cover in one single blog post. So I'd like to leave you with an amazing book written by Lisa TerKeurst called Uninvited. It goes into much detail about rejection and how to overcome its hold on your life. It is beautifully written with many drops of wisdom that can only come from someone who has experienced the hurt of rejection. She constantly reminds you of God's love for you and offers many examples from her life and how you can use the weapon of God's Word to slowly undo the damage of rejection that has seeped into all areas of your life. She even offers a nice little exercise at the end of the book to help you get started towards healing in Jesus Christ. If you'd like to check it out, below is a link to the Amazon page or you could do what I did: check it out at your local library.
