Over the last couple of weeks the Holy Spirit has led me to a realization about myself and how I have handled rejection in the past. Now usually, when we are rejected from something, rather than accepting that rejection and learning to being content with it, the alternative is to drive that rejection into something else.
That something else that ends up being the very thing that will drive us into a hole that is much harder to get out of. I even think about the word rebound, which many of us as humans, in our flesh, are so eager to jump into something else because the first thing didn’t work out (whether that be friendships or relationships, even a job). And so as I continue to dive deeper into my relationship with God I realized that when rejection happens, it typically happens because God is trying to detour us from something and/or direct us to something else. But rather us being uncomfortable in the rejection and trusting that God has better for us, we instead jump to something else because WE think it's better + we don't like the feelings that come with being rejected. Where now because we decided to take matters into our own hands by jumping into something else, we have to find a way to justify the sudden move we just made. Not to mention, we have to now fight twice as hard to make that rebound actually work so that we won't be rejected once more. That rebound that God never wanted us to take action on anyway, but y’all know we are some hard-headed people! So we have to learn it the hard way. Might I also add that God will typically throw in some warning signs along the way of us heading towards that rebound, but we, in our fleshly and carnal minds, press on and ignore the signs.
The Holy Spirit also revealed to me the word void. When we’re rejected from something for a specific reason, we redirect it to something else just to fill the void from what we originally thought was meant for us. I mean y’all this thing hit me like a ton of bricks because I did this exact thing (insert the emoji with its mind being blown). Another word for it is temporary satisfaction, and why would we dig ourselves into something else that will only give us instant BUT temporary satisfaction?! My goodness!
Listen, God has a plan for our lives, and I mean all of our lives but we interrupt it so much because of what WE think is best for us. We interrupt it because of the things we want so badly, but we can’t even see that it’ll do more harm than good and slow down the plan God has for us because we’re so focused on ourselves and WHAT WE WANT. And yes, sometimes God will allow us the space to make these fleshly decisions for ourselves but trust and believe that He ultimately has a plan to get us back on track at some point. Yes, he’ll let that thing play out how WE wanted … he may even let it go on for some time to show us, but then he’ll come back later with a lesson attached to the reason for the initial rejection.
One thing I know to be true about myself is that I have FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), I have this strong desire to be included in pretty much everything because I don’t want to be left out (pretty sure this stems from my childhood of technically being an only child). Listen now, FOMO and not being included in stuff will have you re-directing rejection into the wrong people, places, and spaces and that is EXACTLY what happened to me. But I thank God that he is gracious and loving because he allowed me to stay in something until he was ready to call me out of it. For me that lesson hit out of no where last Thursday, AND IT HIT HARD! You now may be wondering, “What is it Tenia? What was the rejection and the lesson?" "What has brought you to write this specific post?” - Well, let’s get into it:
So, in college, I had the desire to join the sorority Alpa Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., and I mean I had it BAD. And with wanting to join this sorority, I was going above and beyond to great lengths to make it in. Here we see the prime example of me having FOMO and wanting to be accepted into something that I ultimately thought would be GOOD for me. Now, hindsight is 20/20 looking back on it 9 years later. God had that rejection set up on purpose because I was moving outside of his plan for my life, but it didn't click at the time (wasn't even close to clicking, lol). So, instead of me sitting in the uncomfortableness of the rejection and then allowing the Holy Spirit to guide me into eventual contentment, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Matters into my own hands looked like me joining a co-ed fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity Inc., to fill that void of being rejected from the sorority. So last Thursday when this lesson came full force from the Holy Spirit I couldn’t even say anything back because deep down in my spirit I knew it was absolutely true. Don’t get me wrong though, I did cultivate some amazing friendships with some amazing people from joining, but I ultimately joined for the wrong reason. I joined this co-ed fraternity because of a MISPLACED REJECTION.
I just want you all to know how hard it was for me to write this particular post, I’ve had so much anxiety about it since I created the outline for this post. However, I believe the Holy Spirit led me to write this post to free myself and free somebody else too so I'm being obedient. Know that God didn’t create us to fit into every single space, He called us to occupy CERTAIN spaces for CERTAIN reasons. You see, God never called me to redirect myself into this particular space. I did that out of my own selfish desire and how I coped with the initial rejection. It was to fill a void, but after some time pasted + a few gentle nudges + God’s grace - He finally called me out on it AND out of it by way of the Holy Spirit and some resources around me. He called me out of it by withdrawing my membership from the co-ed fraternity (also known as denouncing/renouncing) not only for the way I handled the initial rejection, but more importantly for biblical and spiritual reasons. The spiritual and biblical reasons didn't come at full force until recently. Again, 9 years ago my relationship with Christ wasn't where it is today and I had no idea of what I know now. Though still gentle, the Holy Spirit led me to watch some Youtube videos on denouncing/renouncing Greek organizations and what the Word says about making covenants outside of God, putting things above God (creating idols - which I didn't realize I was doing because I was so blinded by the way I chose to fill the void of rejection) and His Word among a plethora of other things. Now of course, denouncing/renouncing Greek organizations is no secret, so I’m not going to sit here and pretend that it is. However for me, I had to do this because of where I AM in my walk with Christ and where/what I believe He is calling me to next. It took about 3 or so years for this to happen, but again I believe it was all in God's timing, the conversations I've had with a couple of people, the videos I watched, and a book from a friend that she wrote on joining a sorority as a Christian (legit have had this book in a bag in my closet for 3 years until I felt the urge to pull it out last Friday.
And so now, I can now say that I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me since withdrawing my membership and even now as I finish this post.
I want to conclude with a message to the person that may have experienced rejection or may be experiencing it at a later time (unbeknownst to them): just know from personal experience of redirecting rejection ON MY OWN, it ultimately dug me into something else that was harder to come back from (even down to ignoring the signs from God). Whether it be friendships, relationships, work-related stuff, or even sororities and fraternities - rather than taking matters into your own hands, just take the uncomfortableness that comes with the rejection and sit in it. I promise that the Holy Spirit WILL allow contentment to be your portion soon after.
"And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die." | Revelation 12:11 (NLT)
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