Why Does Rejection Feel So Bad?

Kathy Collard Miller continually turns women to the Word of God to find truth to combat the lies they might believe. In this Spiritual Growth UPGRADE, she helps us focus in on the truth about rejections.

"Rejection," Kathy says, "hits like an atom bomb in our soul."

Boom! I (Dawn) have felt the powerful impact of rejection over my entire life. But I've learned over the years how to counter the reality of rejection and my brokenness because of it—with God's truth. That's something Kathy' espouses too.

Kathy continues . . .

Recently I felt sick in the depths of my stomach and my soul when I felt rejected.

Personal rejection can be described as someone refusing to accept what we offer them or they believe something bad about us.

We feel attacked and misunderstood. It can be a very hopeless feeling.

Here are three points for hope.

1.  We can understand where the feelings of rejection originated.

Rejection can bring up the lies we believed or felt about us in childhood. In that moment, we feel as if we’re back being that little girl or boy when we felt horrible, because we were attacked emotionally or physically.

It feels like all the resources and truth we know as adults about God are thrown out the window and we’re back to being voiceless, powerless, or without defense. The feelings are the same even though the situation is different.

In those moments, God offers hope through assuring us we aren’t the child any longer—thinking God isn’t there for us.

Instead, the truth is, God promises to be our refuge, help, protector, and give unconditional love.

We may not see evidence of that like we’d prefer, but by faith we can tell ourselves our loving Savior is “for” us and is defending us more than we realize.

2. Rejection most often comes because the other person feels threatened in some way.

Most of the time, she is reacting out of her own pain or even feeling rejected or worthless herself.

Even if we made a mistake or react in a hurtful way, she is responsible before God to offer grace because He has forgiven her for so much and He offers the strength she needs to make a wise choice.

But so many of us respond to and are responded to by others out of past wounds. Unfortunately, we take the person’s attack personally and blame ourselves.

Certainly we can take responsibility for our wrong choices but regardless, the other person is responsible for their response too. God wants to empower us to not take the attack personally but to offer an example of God’s grace of unconditional love. It is possible.

3. Rejection is the feeling of our worth and value being dismissed.

We believe the rejection is valid, because we believe the lie someone else believes: “She is worthless,” “He is stupid,” “She has nothing of worth to offer,” and many other lies.

But those are lies created by Satan against God’s beloved creation.

We must look primarily to God for who He says we are, not other people.

Not only were each of us created with God’s stamp of “good” at creation, even in our sin He demonstrates we are important and loved by Him through the sacrifice of His Son on the cross. That act determines we are never rejected or reject-able by God.

In the first chapter of Ephesians, He says the opposite of rejection.

He says we are:

• loved,
• forgiven,
• blessed,
• redeemed,
• accepted,
• adopted,
• and many other truths of our identity.

Only believing those truths will counteract the atom bomb going off in our soul and minds when we feel rejected.

Indeed, our audience of One—God Himself—is still seeing us “in Christ” regardless of another person’s opinions.

Jesus demonstrated that many times.

• Jesus refused to believe the rejection of His own family who believed Him crazy (Mark 3:21).
• Jesus didn’t respond to the rejection of the Pharisees, His own disciples, and even the betrayal of Judas and Peter.

He knew His identity as God.

Even as a human, Jesus depended on who His Father said He was.

That’s our challenge also.

Which point will you focus on the next time you feel rejected?

Kathy Collard Miller is the author of more than 50 books including Choices of the Heart: Daughters of the King Bible Study Series. She is a popular women's conference speaker both nationally and internationally. Visit KathyCollardMiller.com. Kathy lives in Southern California with her husband Larry (of 45+ years). They have two children and two grandchildren.

Graphic adapted, courtesy of comfreak at Pixabay.

He's Making Art

Cynthia Ruchti invites us to think biblically about our lives, and in this Attitude UPGRADE she asks us to examine our hearts: How is God making my life beautiful?

"I now walk through art galleries and fairs asking myself, 'What had to be broken in order to create this art?'" Cynthia said.

I (Dawn) don't usually think of brokenness and art at the same time, but I love Cynthia's approach, and it makes me more grateful for the grace of God.

Cynthia continues . . . 

While researching artistic mending techniques for a recently released nonfiction book titled Tattered and Mended: The Art of Healing the Wounded Soul, I could feel the angle of my heart shifting.

Something has to break first in order for an artist to create.

Under the skilled hand of a master jeweler, gemstones in their raw form are chiseled and ground and intentionally shattered into smaller, workable pieces before they can grace an artistic ring or necklace.

GemologyOnline.com says, “Bruting grinds away the edges, providing the outline shape (for example, heart, oval or round) for the gem… Once the fully faceted diamond has been inspected and improved, it is boiled in hydrochloric and sulfuric acids to remove dust and oil." 

• A stained glass artist uses bits and pieces, scraps and shards of colored glass. Sometimes the artist takes a full sheet of glass and intentionally breaks it to create the piece he or she needs when creating the masterpiece.
• A painter breaks the seal on the fresh tube of pigment. 
• A fiber artist twists the threads, or separates them, or punches a needle into fabric.
• A potter starts by cutting or “wedging” the clay, then kneading it for as many as fifty strokes before throwing it onto the potter’s wheel.
• A mosaic artist rejoices over finding broken pieces of porcelain, china, pottery, envisioning the art it can become.

 The deeper I look, the more convinced I am:

Broken pieces don’t spell the end of something, but the beginning.

The psalmist David said so, too. “A broken spirit is my sacrifice, God. You won’t despise a heart, God, that is broken and crushed” (Psalm 51:17 CEB).

Walk the halls of His gallery. What do you see? Portraits of uncommon courage. Displays of resilience that speak of God’s power to endure. Pictures of the reformed, reshaped, remolded, recovered, rehabbed, reclaimed, rebuilt, redeemed.

Where does that leave us when we scramble to collect the shards of a broken life? What hope can we draw from His Word and His character?

1. He invites us into the mending process. (Psalm 34:18; Psalm 147:3; Isaiah 57:15)

2. He can’t resist the broken. (Psalm 51:17)

3. We won’t always find the process comfortable. (I Peter 4:19)

4. What emerges when He’s finished will have an impact on others. (Job 23:10)

5. God doesn’t merely iron a temporary patch over a threadbare spot or sweep up shattered pieces and discard them. He sorts through them, handles them tenderly, and creates art. (Isaiah 61:3)

When you hear about—or experience—heart-shattering news, are you more likely to ask, “God, what are You doing?” or to assume, “He’s making art”?

Cynthia Ruchti is an award-winning author and frequently-requested speaker. She tells stories hemmed in hope through her novels, novellas, devotionals, nonfiction, and speaking events for women. You can connect with her at cynthiaruchti.com and learn more about her books, including the July 2015 release—Tattered and Mended: The Art of Healing the Wounded Soul.

Graphic adapted, Image courtesy of Feelart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.