Overcoming rejection

  I took my kids to the lake today and as I sat there getting myself all kinds of settled in, I felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit urging me to pick up the book I know He really wants me to read.  It's called Dealing With the Rejection and Praise of Man by Bob Sorge.  "My situation is a little different, Lord, why do I have to read this book?" (I don't even know what the book is entirely about...)  I sound like a whiny child that's just been asked to do some awful chore.  He says, "It's OK, take one paragraph at a time if you have to, you will be so glad you did."  So I pick up the book and read the preface, sort of, and turn to chapter one.  Right of the bat this paragraph strikes my heart and I'm weeping.  It says, "When we feel rejection, (the opposite of love and acceptance), we instinctively fight to regain our emotional balance.  We process and rehearse the experience repeatedly in our minds, trying to find a way to cope and insulate ourselves from the pain."  Even as I write, and feel the emotions starting to well up, I can feel the resistance from trying to put that wall up that protects me and keeps me hidden.  This is why it's so important for me to write this, it's not the wall that is the problem for me, it's what happens to me in the hiding behind it.  It's the process of overcoming the critical spirit and rejection of self.

I know I'm not so different, there are many others that deal with these same issues.  We are all our own worst enemy.  I'm not currently suffering from the rejection of any one person in my life, at least not that I'm aware of.  I do, however, have many wounds from the past that God is and has been healing since the day I said, "I do." but mostly, I'm at odds with myself and I have to ask God, "Why?"  "I know that You love me, shouldn't that be all that matters?  Where is all this static coming from?  I'm over the past, I have a new name and a new life.  With You, I'm free from all the garbage and pain that I accumulated while I was on the run.  You paid for it with your broken body and Your blood.  Why do I have such a......"Deep hole in your heart?" He patiently relpies.  That's exactly what it is, a deep, dark, hole that echoes with the sounds of all my past hurts and rejections.  Thank you God for saving me from that death!

The bible says that when we love God, He will take our hardened hearts and give us hearts of flesh.  Back in the world I had all sorts of vices that I could use to numb the pain and make me hard.  It's no wonder I was so depressed all the time, it takes a lot of effort keeping that wall up.  Whenever I felt self hatred or rejection creeping up I felt like I had no choice but to numb myself.  The pain was so overwhelming that it completely consumed me.  The drugs and alcohol, I thought, tamed it enough to where it couldn't kill me.  I was so wrong.  The enemy showed me how to put up that wall and he knew every weak place in it.  he had free reign there just as long as I kept it up and God out.  Since surrendering my heart to God, I've felt the heart of flesh beating and it's wonderful!  The Lord has punched holes in that wall on more than one occasion and made quite a spectacle out of the devil but a lot of what He has done has been brick by brick.  He's teaching me how the wall was built by having me watch Him take it down.  It's a backwards kingdom, what can I say?

I ask God, "What does it look like in my heart now? The wall is gone but the hole is still there, what's in that hole?  Why do I still hear sound coming from it?  Is it a bottomless pit or is there solid ground down there somewhere?"  I imagine that when I was first born my heart was pretty whole. There were some generational things happening at the core, I know, and the enemy took every opportunity to hit me from the outside to get me to come into agreement with his thoughts of me.  By doing this, those things hidden at the core would take on a life of their own and start digging holes in my heart.  Pretty soon those holes would become deep caverns of pain.  The devil filled them with lies about who I was and who God was and if He were to come close, my resistance would be strong.  It's kind of a funny picture now, looking back, as if I could ward off the Almighty God.  The One who brought my very being into existence and there I stood, in all my glory, resisting Love.  I can just imagine His face brushing by me with that all knowing smile of a Father.  His thoughts toward me would say, "You have no idea what I'm going to do in your life young lady.  You just wait.  I'll blow your mind. I Can love you and you Will love Me."

 I know at one point my heart was full of bullet holes and gashes, open wounds were everywhere.  Through repentance and forgiveness they've been healed up and only the scars remain now.  The scars are reminders of the things I've faced and overcome.  Some of the wounds are still evident though and I'm asking, "God, are they ever going to be healed?"  I feel impatient asking, knowing that some things take longer than others and that I won't be COMPLETELY healed until I get my resurrected body so I just imagine myself with my cross, lugging it along with Jesus.  He so completely understands the position I'm in and I must embrace it because rejection was such a big part of what led me to Christ in the first place.  I feel His heart soft towards me, He is so kind and gentle, and His heart is glad that I am with Him.

A woman in Kansas City prophesied over me that my heart was like a broken cup.  She saw many cracks and holes in it and said that God pours out His love the way He does because as His love goes in and through those cracks and holes my heart is repaired.  It's true for all of us, for anyone who knows what it feels like to have deep pain and sorrow in their heart, God will restore, He will make it whole.  He fills our cups to overflowing so that we may be healed by His love going deep into those places of woundedness.  I imagine a bucket full of holes.  If you try to fill it up with water it will just run out of the holes, but if you keep the flow constant, the bucket will overflow. He is constant in the pouring, all we have to do is posture ourselves towards Him and ask for it.  He has anointed us and prepared a table before us, in the presence of our enemies.  Oh what a feast it is!  We have many choices to choose from but we must feast on the bread of affliction and drink the water of our tears which is the wine because it's the best of what we are offered!  To pass it up is foolish.

Through all of this I can say that today my heart is whole.  There are tunnels in there but they are empty and only every once in a while do I hear a sound that reminds me of what was once there.  I'm grateful for the girl that made all the wrong decisions, who resisted love and defended those caverns because if it weren't for her, I wouldn't be me.  She wasn't who she was supposed to be in the eyes of the world but she was brave.  Even though she wasn't fighting for the right side, she fought for freedom.  Broken hearted, beat up and abused but she still loved, she gave it all up for love.  I asked God one time, I said, "God, why me?"  His answer was simple, He said, "Because you love."  Because you love, so simple yet so complex.  All God wants is your love, nothing more and nothing less.  He wants to love you and be loved in return, isn't that what we all want?