Rejection isn’t a new concept to me. It’s a mountain I’ve had to walk around regularly for most of my life. When I was a kid, I’d struggle to get in the popular groups in school so I wouldn’t be rejected. I was rejected in the process – popular girls do not give you an easy time when you try and break through their circles - but I thought, if I only make it across that finish line, I’ll be fine.
In High School, the popular crowd had a name and an actual club. Have you heard of the St. John’s ambulance cadets? Well in my boarding girls-only High School, we sure had, and almost every girl on campus wanted to join it. We used to wear special uniforms and march around the quad singing songs and having fun, it was just a fun crowd. This was good for me because admission was best on how well you grasped first aid techniques so it wasn’t a popularity test as such. Again, seeking to be in the most popular group in school, I sacrificed studying for Chemistry or Biology or whatever and I’d give all that time to learning the First Aid manual and what to do in case of an emergency because those are the tests you had to pass.
Let’s not even begin to unpack the mountains of rejection I’ve had to face out of High School and into the real world. The friends who edge you out, the relationships that leave your heart wounded the job applications you never got a reply to and all that’s yet to come.
When you want something, when you really want something and you’ve been waiting a long time to get it, then suddenly the stars align and it seems that your dreams could actually be a reality or that things are working out in the direction you wanted, it’s exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.
You move from a place of anticipation to excitement to intense vulnerability because you know things could go either way. You sit in vulnerability for a while, then with the passage of time, you slowly inch toward acceptance. This is it. This is real. This is happening. // All of a sudden the ground shifts beneath you realize the other person hadn’t really been moving through the phases like you had, you aren’t on the same page as that person you thought you could spend the rest of your life with and you watch as they walk off into the sunset with a piece of your heart or your job doesn’t have room for you anymore and you have to pack up that little brown box and make room for someone else.
Rejection stinks.
Rejection hurts.
Sometimes it is what it is. There’s no happy reconciliation at the end of the break, there’s no hero coming back to reclaim his lost treasure. It’s just over.
This is the point where we need to remind ourselves the power of redemption. That God can breathe back new life where death once existed. That God can turn this nasty battle into a story of hope. That at the end of every death, there’s always a resurrection of some sort. I know that’s not what you want to hear. You want to hear tips for avoiding the death in the first place, I wish it did, but it doesn’t exist. What we do have is God’s call to us that we don’t have to circle the mountain of rejection looking for a cave of acceptance once in a while where we can set down our luggage and rest for a while, only to discover the walls caving in after you've barely settled in.
God is our resurrection and our hope. Christ sits at the throne over every area of our life. He’s calling us to head north and stop circling the mountain.
Head to Him for your acceptance
Head to Him for your reliance
Head to Him for your home
He is the reminder that rejection from man isn’t rejection from God or from His plans for you. His plans for you DON’T rest on another person’s plans with you. Yes, He does bring some powerful partnerships in your life, but at the end of the day, He has plans just for them just as He has plans just for YOU.
One day, we’ll look at this beautiful tapestry of our lives that He’s weaving together and realize that it all made sense.
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