Avoiding Rejection

The question was a serious one. A deeply thought provoking one. The subject a hard one. But her hand shot up so fast as we sat in that circle in my sunroom that we couldn’t do anything but laugh. 

“Have you ever experienced rejection?”

Of course, we already knew her answer as we had just earlier been sitting around the dining room table discussing her situation. 

The question itself stemmed from a conversation I had had with my niece a number of weeks prior when she said, “I try not to put myself in situations where I will be rejected.”  I flippantly responded, “Me, too,” but as I have thought about that statement and my response, I have come to the conclusion that unless we live alone in a tent in the middle of a desert miles and miles from civilization, it is a total impossibility and practice in futility to avoid rejection. And even then we will most likely be concerning ourselves with why no one is checking up on us. And then feel rejected.

A quick look in the dictionary and you will find this concerning rejection.

To refuse to have, take, recognize, accept, etc.

To discard as useless or unsatisfactory

To cast out or eject; vomit

That’s a pretty harsh list because when we think of rejection, we think in terms of people and relationships. More specifically, people we love. Or did love. People we have allowed into our inner circle. Why else would their rejection carry such a sting? 

One by one the ladies in the circle began to share their stories of being rejected. And there were many, each speaking of disappointment, disillusionment, and pain. Here are just a few.

A mother who tells her daughter, “I don’t love you.”

A teacher who says, “You don’t dress right.” When it was all she had.

An exclusion from a girls’ night out.

A grieving widow thrown out of her home by a hateful and evil stepson.

An employer that says, “You are no longer relevant; your service is no longer needed.”

And what woman does not have some kind of hurtful dating experience to tell? When I told the ladies of a couple of mine, they didn’t know whether to cringe or laugh, so they did both. On one occasion, I had been dating a fellow for a while. There was no exchange of class ring or real verbal commitment except that we had been seeing only each other (or so I thought) for a significant period of time. One afternoon I received a call from a girlfriend who said she felt like she needed to let me know that she and this said boyfriend had been out parking the night before, even giving me the location. How does one respond to that? “Thank you for calling”? And then after another much longer involvement with a guy, yet another life-long girlfriend showed up on my doorsteps saying she wanted me to know that she had been on a date with this said boyfriend the night before. I still haven’t figured out if these girls were my friends or not. Ironically, this last episode was also the day my future husband showed up at my house with his parents for homemade peach ice cream.

After a lengthy discussion concerning rejection, one of the young women in our group boisterously said, “The only way to avoid rejection is to lock yourself up in your house and never go out.”

My point exactly! And even then you’d have to never answer your phone, never check your mail, and never ever get on social media. 

In other words, there really is no way to avoid it. Life just presents it to you. Rejection.

Since that Sunday night with my ladies, I have heard accounts from other sources. Much more serious ones than high school betrayals.

A mother’s last words from her death bed telling her daughter, “I never knew how to love you.”

A grieving daughter suffering the loss of a father who has turned away and become a man she no longer recognizes as the one who raised her.

A daddy telling his young boy before he left him and his mother, “You are not the kind of son I wanted.”

That is some hard stuff right there. 

But if there’s any good news concerning rejection, this might be it: we and they are in really good company.

As we press further into the Lenten season and the Passion story, we are becoming more and more aware of this One who was “rejected by many,” as Isaiah tells us. 

Jesus told His own disciples that He would be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law (Luke 9:22). And He was. 

To those in authority, Jesus asked, “Didn’t you ever read this in the Scripture? ‘The stone [Me] that the builders [you] rejected has now become the chief cornerstone’?” (Matthew 21:42).

And speaking again to His disciples concerning the coming age, Jesus once again says, “But first the Son of Man must suffer terribly and be rejected by this generation” (Luke 17:25).

And don’t think for a minute that each of us hasn’t had a voice in the crowd that cried out, “Crucify Him!”

So what do we do with all of that? The Scripture is pretty clear about that one, too.

“Having loved His own who were in the world,” those who were about to scatter and leave Him to suffer alone, “He loved them to the end.”

And from the cross, hovering above those who had just nailed Him there, “Father, forgive them.” 

That’s how we avoid rejection. We don’t play into it. We love and we forgive. 

But there was one more time when Someone turned His back on Jesus. We hear it when He cries out from the cross in a loud voice, “‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Matthew 27:46.)

His Father … the One with whom He had never ever been separated, turned His face away. It was the ultimate rejection. Yet even here, the turning away held purpose. And it’s what held Him there.

Love and forgiveness … for you and me. 

Again, when it comes to rejection, there’s no way to avoid it. But what we can do is choose to live as Christ lived and love and forgive those who do turn their backs to us.

Just an ordinary moment.