Hey everyone,
OMGGGG. It has been such a long time since I have published a blog. I honestly am appalled at the fact that I am sitting up at 11:51 PM feeling inspired to write. I absolutely cannot believe it, but I am so thankful because, like I always say, “writing gives my heart a voice.”
And right now, I feel my heart reconnecting with some of the life giving, life changing hobbies that grief caused me to prematurely let go of. These last three years have been such a roller coaster of emotions, experiences, growth, and lessons. There is so much that has happened, so much that I have learned, and honestly, so much that I have never had the space to put into words.
But I think I’m finally ready.
I have so much to share with you all and a whole lot of time and space to release it. So please, turn your notifications on and prepare yourselves for some STORY TIMEEEEEE. 🙂
For as long as I can remember, rejection has always had a dramatic presence in my story. It has shown up in more ways than I could ever count, sometimes loudly and sometimes so quietly that I didn’t even realize what I was experiencing was rejection.
Let me just say this… I was a premature baby. Born two months earlier than my mother’s suspected due date.
Look at that. I was even rejected out of the womb. And for so long, rejection held such a negative connotation in my heart because, in my mind, rejection meant, “I wasn’t lovable”, “I wasn’t wanted.”, and “I do not belong.” As a child and adolescent, I experienced rejection from my peers in so many different ways. I was bullied, called derogatory and disrespectful names, left out, and sometimes even had people choose to be mad at me simply because mutual classmates were mad at me. Silly things, honestly. Things that probably seemed so small to everyone else, but they stuck with me.
They became little pieces of evidence that reinforced what I already believed about myself: I was unlovable. I was undesirable. I wasn’t wanted. I desired to be liked and loved by my peers so badly that there were moments when I compromised what I believed in just to fit in with them. I wanted to belong. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to feel chosen.
And the painful part? Even after compromising myself to fit in, they still rejected me anyway. Rejection became so deeply rooted in me that I eventually felt rejected by God and my family, too. I felt like He had taken my biological father away from me before I ever had the opportunity to build a safe and secure bond with him. As a child, I didn’t have the understanding to process loss that way. All I knew was that someone I needed was gone.
Someone who could have possibly spoken life into me and rescued me from the cruelty of this world was not here. He wasn’t here to rescue me. He wasn’t here to speak life into me. He wasn’t here to tell me who I was, remind me that I was loved, or make me feel safe in a world that often felt anything but safe.
So I began to believe that rejection wasn’t just something I experienced.
It was who I was. And at one point, it was.
Long story short, I felt rejected by my family, rejected by my peers, and even rejected by God. That is how deeply rejection had made itself at home in me.
I carried those beliefs with me for years, allowing experiences of rejection to become evidence for something I had already decided about myself. Every disappointment, every relationship that didn’t work out, every time I felt overlooked or unwanted seemed to whisper the same thing: “See? You were right. You’re not wanted.”
But what I’ve come to realize is that rejection was never the whole story. It was simply one of the loudest voices in it. And it remained one of the loudest voices until I realized that I had authority over it.
“Rejection has a voice, but it does not have the final say.“
For years, I allowed rejection to tell me who I was, what I deserved, how I should see myself, and even how I should understand God. But eventually, I realized that just because I had experienced rejection did not mean I had to continue identifying with it.
The voice of rejection can be extremely piercing and debilitating. It can lead you down a path of destruction, causing you to chase after love, validation, and acceptance from people you were never supposed to connect with in the first place.
Rejection comes on an assignment from the enemy to weaken your discernment, which is your ability to hear the voice of God and receive wise instruction. It can discourage you from walking boldly in your God-given purpose and keep you trapped in an identity crisis, constantly questioning who you are, who you are called to be, and whether you are truly loved.
When rejection becomes the voice you listen to most, it can distort the way you see yourself, the way you see others, and even the way you hear God. And that is exactly why I had to learn that rejection could not remain the loudest voice in my life.
I had to learn the difference between experiencing rejection and allowing rejection to become my identity. I allowed it to influence who I connected with, what I tolerated, how I saw myself, and what I believed I deserved.
And honestly, I didn’t even realize how deeply rooted it was until I started looking back at the decisions I had made just to feel chosen. That realization opened the door to a much deeper conversation about rejection, identity, relationships, and healing.
But I will save that story for Part II.
For now, I’ll leave you with this:
“Rejection may have been a part of your story, but it was never meant to be the author of it AND just because you were rejected does not mean you were unwanted. Maybe you were being protected, redirected, or simply being hidden for a season.”
To be continued…
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