Rejection

We live in a culture that tells us when things happen the first time "shame on them." If there is a second time it tells us "shame on you." Rejection has somewhat been the story of my life. I was born to a mother and father who couldn't keep me. Given to a grandmother who was supposed to love, protect, and nurture me....she gave me away. Then put into a family who adopted me and then I was taken from them and they too rejected me. Foster care was a series of more rejections. Many people through college only saw the neediness and rejection ensued again. Each time there has been a light to this never ending story a rejection ensued. This last year has been the hardest because one of the biggest rejections occurred in my entire life. The situation plays in my mind over and over again. The ache in the pit of my stomach rears its ugly head and I feel the rejection all over again.

This battle I have faced is strongly tied with the absence of what God has designed. He designed us to be born into a family. It is something I will never have and something that keeps allowing for rejection. The fact that we live in a sinful world, with sinful people is ever in the forefront of my mind.

I desperately despise when people attempt to make light of situations by "spiritualizing."  However, the one thing I have been pondering this entire year is what it must have been like to be Jesus. The pain that is in my stomach has often caused me to feel like being here is not worth it. The Bible tells us "He was tempted in every way, He was despised rejected, I wonder what Jesus felt knowing He had to be separate from God because the sins of the world were placed on Him. God could not look on Him. He was separated.

 In the garden his sweat was drops of blood. The road to the Cross was filled with such suffering. People shouting and making known their rejection, the physical pain of the Cross he carried both physically and metaphorically. The very people he was going to die for inflicting such pain.  Oh, such agony.

We have a savior who not only has been tempted like we but experienced the very things we did. I want that to rule my thinking and comfort my heart. He is my fellow sojourner, sufferer, friend.