Rejection
Rejection. Ouch, it hurts.
Recently, someone I’d spent a great deal of time, energy, and money on, encouraging, relationship building, mentoring, said she didn’t have time for me anymore. Did she want to take a break from her “busy” schedule? No, really, she didn’t need me. She didn’t dump me in a mean-spirited way, even saying she didn’t want to hurt my feelings. The good-bye was unexpected. I took it like a champ; I left the door open by saying I wish you well, and call me if you ever want to chat again. But that night, I tossed and turned. I felt like a failure. I felt hurt and disappointed. I had meant well.
I was also rejected by a friend I took a moral stand with. I was uncomfortable attending her same-sex “marriage.” Some of us may have family members and friends in this situation; I know it’s a sensitive subject. However, I couldn’t attend in good conscience, but didn’t intend the end of the friendship. But, she felt so rejected by my conviction, I was immediately “unfriended” on facebook, the modern version of a relationship break up. Later, she asked for me to accept her where she was and wanted to refriend me. Now, what? Not wanting to be labeled the intolerant Christian, I refriended her.
The ugly truth, though, and I mean the very ugly truth, gals, is while I don’t like rejection, I’ve done this to others, too. I’m not proud of it. I’ve stopped talking to someone, walked away, shut down, and determined my reasons were justified. (Aren’t they always “justified?”).
I think there’s a place for appropriate, healthy “rejection”. We might need to reject or avoid certain people’s choices and behaviors which could be harmful to our physical or emotional safety. But, sometimes we reject others because we don’t want to be hurt further.
What do we do with rejection when we’re the ones on the receiving end, and we’re wounded? Sometimes the rejection might not even be about us, but the other person’s issues. We all know not everyone’s going to like us, admire us, appreciate us, or respect us. Maybe the rejection triggers memories of past rejections. I’ve never felt worthy or loved by an unkind father-in-law.
We know that Jesus understood rejection. He was rejected by His own people. He was rejected by the leaders of his time. He still endures rejection today. He feels our pain and our sting of loss, whether we’re the “rejected” or the “rejectee.” We might want to nurse our hurts. We might want to rehearse our hurts.
With time and distance, I’ve chosen to pray for the person who didn’t want my attention. My gay friend is still my facebook friend, but I haven’t changed my values.
Heavenly Father, help me to forgivingly heal from the sting and wounding of past rejections. Help me to not reject others when things become difficult or challenging. Lord, thank-you for understanding these very real human feelings.
That is exactly how I felt about groups I was in at Vineyard,,people in the group and/or the leaders were only your friend if you are ‘in’ the group, if you decided not to be in that group the next semester, no more friendships,
This happened to myself and my bf so we both left Vineyard.
Thanks for being vulnerable Jodi.
I think rejection is something we will deal with the rest of our lives.
🙁 It hurts so much. God give us wisdom and grace!
Wow, God’s timing is perfect! I so needed to read this today. I think I should paste that prayer to the front screen of my phone or tape it to my frig. Thank you Jodi!
A painful one, that’s for sure! So hard to forgive, even when we realize it might not have even been intentionally done.
Like Thora said, God give us grace to forgive like You forgave us!
And, Roberta, I’m sorry you felt rejected at our church.
I don’t know the specifics about your situation, but as a leader I can tell you that sometimes we focus on those people we are reaching out to or to new people that come to our group, and we are not as careful at acknowledging former group members when we happen to pass them by in church. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t care about them anymore.
Hope that gives you a little insight into what might’ve happened in your case.
Thank you, Jodi, for your write-up.I think you hit most areas that rejection stems from as well as how we knowingly or unknowingly can do the rejecting. Whether it’s necessary or intended to hurt, it’s still is a very deep wound. My heart grieves for those that I rejected in different ways. May God bless you so much for sharing!
Ouch! I totally agree w/what Julie said about the prayer at the end (really summed it up)–been there, done both. Very timely–so human.