Rejection

 Dear Friends,

             Rejection is something we don’t understand, something we all experience and, certainly, something most us underestimate in the way it affects us.  We don’t realize how it affects our development, how we look at ourselves and how it has the power to ruin our self-esteem, our self-image, and deeply bruise our soul.

             In fact, I believe rejection is the most painful experience we, as human beings and God’s creation, ever have to endure.  It hurts like nothing else and it cuts to the very core and recesses of our being.  It leaves our soul injured, sometimes forever.  Any time we are rejected we remember this pain and hurt as an indelible imprint in our feelings, in our minds, and in our bodies.  Every time we are rejected we experience a loss, and the deeper the rejection the deeper the loss.  Personally, I would rather have some sort of physical pain than the pain that accompanies rejection.  Take my arm, but don’t take my soul. 

             Rejection can be very obvious, but more often it is very subtle.  When we are the one who is not chosen (to be someone’s friend, to be promoted, to be invited, to be asked out, to be talked to, to be included, to belong, to be someone’s spouse, to be accepted by a certain college, to make the team, etc.) we begin to believe there is something wrong and flawed about us, and that God made a mistake when He designed us.  Because of this, we lose our ability to trust that God knew what He was doing and in what He is doing now.  Consequently, we build walls to protect us from further hurt and pain.  This only acts to isolate us and invites more rejection and wall building.  To whatever degree we do this (and we all do to some extent), trust is eroded and we lose touch from each other, ourselves, and from God.  The more rejection, the less we are inclined to trust.

            The opposite of rejection is acceptance.  The best kind of acceptance is that which is unconditional.  Conditional acceptance still builds walls because sometimes the acceptance is withdrawn and this is experienced as another rejection. 

             The good news of the Gospel is that because of what Jesus did for us (Romans 4:22-26), especially in light of the fact that there was nothing we could do for ourselves (Romans 5:6), if we believe in Him, God totally accepts us without condition, forever!!      

                Trying to accept you and me and God more fully,

                 Paul