Rejection.
You yucky thing you.
Can anyone escape your
clammy wrenching touch? From the
first-day-of-school-walk-through-the-lunchroom-no-place-to-sit blues to the
vulnerable heart tossed aside by the object of its affection, rejection rocks
us to our roots. We cringe. We cry. We
internalize. We make silly statements
like "Never again!" As if we had any power over the way others treat
us.
Or the way we treat them.
What? Wait, I take that back. Our response. Why yes, we do have power over
that. And we have power over others in the way that we respond to them when
they've broken our sweet trusting heart all to pieces lying on the floor like
Wednesday's trash. Oh. Wait. Again. Not
necessarily. Although my actions can
belay that I feel that way. "I'm
hurting them back." "I'm giving them a piece of my mind." (Hurts
less then giving them another piece of my heart.) "I'm taking my toys and
going home."
So if I can't escape rejection (live in a cave?) and
can't sustain avoiding rejection (develop a subscription-based approach to
friends and family?), should I embrace rejection?
Can I think about that for
just a second...
In my mental list of the more painful rejections I've
encountered in life, it's the unresolved experiences that I've not completely dealt
with which are the source of my feelings of self-protection, bitterness,
distrust "and every evil thing." (James 3) Jesus, the Rejected One,
is my model for embracing pain of every kind to the tune of unconditional
love. When I think of the beauty of His
love for the real people who really spit on Him, really mocked Him, really
betrayed His friendship, really took His sacrifice for granted, really hurt Him in response to His kindness - - I get really quiet. My words
. And I take in His beauty and learn.
After sitting in awe of the all-consuming
love-without-condition of Jesus Christ, I can't help but run to Him with my own
pierced heart. Life gets tough. Sin takes a toll on the sinner and those
around him. (And I've sat in both
seats...) Jesus has felt the pain I feel
and yet responded to it in the best way possible. He reminds me of His response to my rejection
of Him. He strengthens me with His
acceptance of all I am and my process of becoming all that He has made me to
be.
It's only from this bedrock of His no-matter-what
acceptance of me that I can face the rejection so prevalent in human
society. Whether it's the person who
won't sit next to me on the bus or the person who won't sit next to me at church,
I can choose to embrace rejection and hand it off squarely to Jesus. My genuine smile returned for the frown is
His love flowing through a heart unobstructed by the walls of self protection. It's so freeing. It's so I'm-partnering-with-Jesus as He loves
through me.
I pray for wisdom as I encounter rejection in everyday
life. I don't go looking for it but I
want to welcome with grace the person who brings it my way. I have decided to embrace the process of
learning to respond to rejection the way Jesus does. It takes practice. And there's ample opportunity for that.
Isn't it crazy?
God takes rejection - something so antithetical to all that He is - and
uses our experience with it to make us more like Him. That's what I call "the flip side of
rejection."
A note not for the faint of heart
"Can you hear me now? Hello, this is the Holy Spirit talking. Is anyone home?"
Yes, I'm claiming that "rejection protection"
in its many forms builds a wall between a child of God and the Spirit
within. Because to shut out any part of
the world we shut out the fact that Jesus dealt with it all. Our Rejected Savior embraced the stinging
pain of rejection, loved face and soul of those inflicting it, impaled Himself
upon the cross of paying for it, and died, and came back to life, and gave His
own the Holy Spirit to claim victory over it.
That, and of course so much more.
Don't run from your pain. Own it.
Embrace the process God is working in you through it. Run to Him with it. Give it to Him and for goodness sake don't
take it back. Then walk daily in His
victory over rejection and pain and sin.
Enjoy the freedom He has for you.
Celebrate His acceptance of you and of others. And when someone hits the
tennis ball of rejection into your court again, lob back some honest love.
