Rejection. Part Two.

There might be one who says I can’t stay where I’ve been for the past twenty years. Or ten years. Or ten months. There might be one who has seen all the rejection and pain and who forces me to get up anyways, and believe anyways, and hope anyways.

Joseph Piper says, "The sick soul fears more than anything else the demands made on one who is well."

How many of you, along with me, have been afraid to move on from your pain? How many of you, like me, are afraid of demands? Because that would mean, dear friends, we have to start acting like people who are well.

That would mean, I have to forgive the boy who gave me the scar, and the pre-teen that tortured my biology class and the humiliation of my adult years and the date I went on last week. That would mean dear friends, that I have to start acting as one who is well.

God doesn’t want me to live out of a deficit. You, my Beloved, are meant for more than living out of a deficit. People who have made pain their identity live out of a deficit. And it looks like anger, resentment, bitterness, jealousy, fear, judgment, critical thoughts, retaliation. Ask me how I know. I see it in the mirror, and in broken hearted looks, and I read it in an email response.

I have to start living not as a wounded person, but as a whole person. My God does this. He confronts with hard things. He confronts with living His way over the comfortable way.

Pain and rejection have been my safety blanket. I cover myself with their comfortable lies and I hide. I hide from presenting myself from the world to protect myself from the world. But in all this protecting and hiding, I can’t help but wonder if I peak my head out of the illusion of “safety” - what would I find?

Applying for grad school after years of fearing I wouldn't get in, putting myself online and going on dates, asking a friend to hangout, trying something new, taking a full-body photo AND posting it.

Rejection is a part of this life here on earth. It is a part, not the whole. You are not the sum of someone else’s woundedness. And please dear God don’t let other people take on mine.

The thing with rejection for me is, I may be confronted with it again, but it doesn’t have to be…me.