Rejection. Part One.

The thing with rejection for me has been, whether it was a brief slight or long series of "not worthy enough" encounters that compounded my belief of my unworthiness - it marks me so...deeply. It mars the arduous efforts of believing who I am in Christ, positive talk about my beauty, self-worth, body, my worthiness of marriage, of friendship. It feels like someone coming through with a pick-axe all over a Michelangelo (we are a masterpiece and by a greater artist than him - Eph. 2:10).

It feels like that one time in 5th grade when I went to help the boys pick up their paper footballs, one came and stepped on my fingers in the asphalt and scarred my hand. That was one of the many encounters of boys being mean to me and nice to all the pretty girls as a youngster.

The one boy in Jr. High who cursed at me and mocked me all throughout 3rd period and 5th period relentlessly letting me know how fat and ugly I was with a multitude of other niceties. Every. Single. Day.

Into my teens, comments from random boys telling me how ugly and fat I was. At school, on the bus, walking to the mall.

The complicated life of a college student included for me rejection from boys along with rejection from some girls who I thought would've made good friends, who were pretty and thin and smart and cool.

It is no wonder that the early adult years of my 20s were filled with much apprehension to even try and date. In addition to no one actually being interested in me or the obvious - liking someone younger, thinner, prettier than me. Dating apps might have also been in the wee stages then, but if they were up and running you couldn't pay me to "pay for humiliation" as I thought back then. As that is what had been presented to me in the few or two stints of trying.

This is a short-version history of rejection and it's persistent scraping away at the skeleton of any residual self-esteem I had left.

Then my thirties came... (I can't move on from the crickets)

The reason why this title has rejection full-stop is because that is what is has done to my life. It has halted the resiliency for moving forward, it has replaced confidence with intimidation, and hope with a perpetual sick heart.

The pain of my rejection has been like this thick piece of scarlet thread, that has woven itself through the core of me. It is visible, stitched by word and deed, humiliation, loss, and dread. It has so intricately woven itself into me, we are one.

Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest laments to us, "Sorrow burns up a great amount of shallowness, but it does not always make a man better."

This has been so true in my life. The pain of my rejection has humbled me in some ways, but I am not always better because of my pain.

I have allowed so much of myself to be tied to my pain, that I never considered that it had become my whole identity. And when something becomes your whole identity, it becomes...unchangeable.

I don't know about you, but I would rather choose resiliency in the face of pain rather than a final verdict on my whole being based on what someone said or did to me 10 years ago or 10 minutes ago.

But, its so hard to change. It's so hard to not believe the final verdict of the others that rings in my ears every now and again so loudly I have to stop and remember I'm 34 not 14. It's hard to wake up every day and still keep pushing. Still keep hoping. To get up every day and just...be.

Just be me. Just be all of the rejected parts of me. Just be all the messy flawed beautiful sanctified precious sacred me. There might be one picking up the pieces from all the pick-axe blows. There might be one with salve for the deep wounds. There might be one sending me butterflies everyday. There might be one picking flowers with me. There might be one who says:

"Afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted,

I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise,

your foundations with lapis lazuli.

I will make your battlements of rubies,

your gates of sparkling jewels,

and all your walls of precious stones."

Isaiah 54:11 to 12