Rejection

Can we talk about rejection?

When I was a girl, my family would occasionally make the hours-long road trip from Dallas to Cincinnati to visit my maternal grandparents. My memories of those summer visits are halcyon: playing games around the formica-topped kitchen table, tucking into generous portions of my grandma’s homemade apple pie, roller skating with my cousins in the sunny basement.

Not all of my Ohio experiences were idyllic, however.

Every Sunday morning would find me in the foyer of the family church, smothered in robust hugs by innumerable aunts and cousins, each one chattering about how I reminded her of my momma and outlining exactly how we connected as kin. Over the years, I learned to brace myself before stepping inside that door, preparing for the blast of extended family affection that would nearly squeeze the breath from my lungs.

I’ll confess—those exuberant, gospel-toting gals may not have qualified as a genuine trial in my young life. However, the time that I took a tumble from my grandma’s tree does count as a definite mishap.

Standing like a sentinel in her backyard, that deciduous giant tempted me year after year with its ladder-like branches. Around age eight or nine, I plucked up the courage to attempt the climb. After maneuvering from branch to branch, I paused triumphant, nearly touching the top. I’ll never know just how it happened—a foot slip, an unexpected startle, a weak grip—but one instant, I was viewing an azure sky from my hard-earned perch, and the next, I was lying fifteen feet below in the uneven grass, unable to breathe.

Before that moment, I had never experienced having the “wind knocked out of me.” I was terrified. I had no idea what was happening to my body or how to fix it. As I struggled desperately to inhale, every extremity aching with jarring pain, I began to panic. I needed an oxygen mask. Without it, I was convinced that I was going to die unseen in my grandmother’s backyard. I had no choice but to remain in that semi-paralyzed state until, after what seemed an eternity, a tiny stream of air reinflated my lungs. Within another minute I was able to inhale properly, and giant sobs erupted. I stumbled into the house, sharing the woeful tale with my grandmother who redeemed the tragedy with a tender hug and huge slice of apple pie.

At this point you’re likely questioning, “What do climbing trees and oxygen masks have to do with rejection?”

Hold tight—it’s coming.

Six months ago, my husband and I were dropped into the most painful season of our thirty-five years of marriage. The event which super-launched this season was so unexpected and all-encompassing that we reeled for months, desperate to find a place of emotional footing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the shock factor from which we struggled to recover. It was the rejection we experienced which acted as the sucker punch to our guts. Our character, our ministry, our choices, even our motives—all were described as either unhealthy, ungodly, or both.

We’re no strangers to the challenges of leadership and church ministry. Those types of indictments, after first being submitted to the Lord and then to wise confidantes as a potential tool for God’s discipline in our lives, are often filed away under Solomon’s charge of “Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you” (Ecclesiastes 7:21).

But in this case, that was impossible. The instigators were too deeply trusted and fiercely loved to categorize their words as insignificant.

After that initial land mine had exploded, not only were we consumed with extracting slivers of shrapnel from our hearts, but we also continued to be blasted with ongoing actions and pre-planned decisions which rocked us. Many days we longed for nothing more than to stagger off the battlefield to bleed out unseen. I often felt physically smothered. I would struggle desperately to inhale, the fibers of my heart throbbing with pain. Every time I was hit afresh by the loss, betrayal, and grief, I would feel paralyzed, literally unable to breathe.

In the pre-dawn hours each morning, rivers of tears would stream fresh. Words to pray wouldn’t come. It was all I could do to cling to Jesus, silent and desperate. Eventually, I dove into the book of Job—those pages in my Bible were dog-eared and worn. Just before this bomb had hit, I had completed a book about wilderness seasons in which I had pulled from Job’s narrative. But the Holy Spirit insistently nudged me to take another look at Job 3:25: “For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me.”

I had spent all of my young adult years and most of my middle-aged life fearing rejection. Not just your garden variety abandonment, but specifically the rejection of those who know me best which would come as a result of my failures. I harbored an apprehension that if I disappointed those dear ones, they would walk away from intimacy with me. It was something which Jesus had been talking to me about for quite some time, challenging me to let go of those fears and the corresponding need to always get it right in order to protect my heart.

So when I re-read Job’s confession, I could deeply relate. The thing which I dreaded had befallen me. The parties involved disagreed, but aren’t we all familiar with the adage about actions and words and which ones speak louder? From our vantage point, theirs had been amplified through a bullhorn: we had failed. Categorically.

But even as I wrestled with the smothering heartache, Jesus daily reminded me of this truth: He never purposelessly allows pain in my life, not even the agony of rejection. Others may indiscriminately or even intentionally wound me, but God is not a man. He is compassionate, merciful, and always purposeful. His righteous discipline endures for a time so that I will be transformed from glory to glory—eventually reflecting the beauty of His image in every aspect of my life. Because He has taken years to teach me this lesson, it has become one of the unshakeable foundations upon which my faith is built. Jesus will lead me headlong into the thing which I fear most for the sole purpose of delivering a shout of freedom over my heart. And one morning just a few weeks into this journey, He whispered the heavenly key to my victory, “Beloved, you never have to pick up what rejection is throwing down.”

Just prior to this season, Chris and I had been in the throes of a time of birthing, pushing in the natural and groaning in the Spirit to bring forth things which we believed the Lord had commissioned. It had been tough in many ways, necessitating risky faith that challenged my notions of safety and nudged me far past comfort. In retrospect, we recognize that at the moment of relational detonation, much of that momentum was stolen—and more would continue to be stolen if we acquiesced to the fear and lies of rejection. But just as He accomplished a restorative miracle for Job, God has promised us that all will be restored. So by His grace, I’m still breathing.

Although it’s been an interminable six months, I don’t have a shiny bow with which to wrap this up. Some days, the pain of ongoing and increasing rejection slams me like a freight train, and in the ensuing panic, I still yearn for an oxygen mask. But half a year down the road, I’m far more likely to recognize what’s going on. By Jesus’ strength I’m standing against that accusing liar, the devil, who wants nothing more than to destroy both me and my family, relationships, reputation, ministry, calling, and destiny.

I can’t share a homily on how to overcome rejection in three simple steps. But I can make this declaration: I am in process with Jesus. Because I am human, I will regrettably fail those around me, unintentionally wounding even the dearest ones in my life. I will humble myself and seek forgiveness and reconciliation. And if in that process, I am rejected, I will stand firm in Jesus. Rejection doesn’t rule my thoughts, my heart, or my circumstances, and I’m fighting daily to walk away from everything that the spirit of rejection is throwing down. As a result, I can be forsaken by those I love and still stand confident in my King. I can have the door shut in my face, appeals for reconciliation ignored, and relationships intentionally cut off, but Jesus is for me. He is the friend who sticks closer than a brother. He is the one who never leaves me. He is my strong tower and deliverer, the one who shields me in the face of accusation and abandonment.

So, like that long-suffering and victorious patriarch, I can breathe deep and declare with Job that “my relatives have failed me and my close friends have forgotten me,” “but He knows the way that I take, and when He has tried me, I shall come out as gold” (Job 19:14, 23:10).

Hallelujah.