Uninvited - By Lysa TerKeurst
There I was, just a youngin’ and so excited to be attending the Children’s Christmas party at church. The teacher told us to make a large circle with our chairs, followed by instructions to grab the gift we were to bring for the gift exchange. What??! I knew nothing of a gift exchange. When my teacher saw I didn’t have a gift to give she pulled my chair from the circle and then had me sit and watch as all of the kids passed their gifts around and opened up their treasures. That night left me feeling so embarrassed, singled out, and rejected. We’ve all been there and experienced the heartache of feeling unwanted, left out, and all alone. Now I must say, my mother came to my defense by contacting the teacher who ignorantly claimed, “I assumed you knew to bring a gift, you ARE the pastor’s family,” but that experience definitely left it’s mark.
Now I’d like to say that was my only run in with this thing called “rejection”, but as I’d come to learn, Satan was going to use this tactic to try and destroy me years down the road. At first it was not making the Ensemble team my first year of tryouts in High School (something the music director graciously apologized for years later), but that doesn’t mean that even still today, despite my singing in a band in high school and solos in church growing up, that I don’t feel insecure every time I sing in our church’s praise team ministry. Things like that follow you, often throughout life.
My biggest rejection though, came after eight years of being married to my high school sweetheart, whom I had dated for over eight years prior to getting married, and with whom during our marriage I had my two children. Not only did I come to discover he had broken our marriage vows repeatedly, but upon confrontation of such choices he left the home, never to return. So, you can imagine when I heard about this book that encouraged you to “live loved when you feel less than, left out and lonely” I jumped at the chance to learn how to accomplish such a goal after being beat down to my lowest point.
The author tenderly opens up about her own experiences with rejection and seeks to expose the root of from where our rejections come, all while using the Word of God to point us back to the truths of God. She validates that such experiences with rejection will follow us all the days of our lives and are quite painful, but encourages us to not let what breaks our heart destroy our lives. As the author shared the effect of rejection, including how it “steals the security of all thought was beautiful and stable and leaves us scared and fragile and more vulnerable than ever,” she uncovers the other insecurities that breed as result of rejection:
Lies we begin to believe
Assumptions we begin to make which lead us feeling more rejected
Temptations that can surface as result of our need for acceptance
Influences that creep in and consume our attention
The author then provides tools to be able to conquer moments to where we can end up coming from a place of abundance instead of scarcity. Where we won’t be “consumed by and focused on the mess – the feelings of rejection, hurt, and disillusionment – that we miss the miracle.” She challenges us to “see Him more clearly, more clearly see the miracle in our mess, the good in our difficulty, the redemption in rejection.”
By the end of the book you’ll have a deeper meaning of Mark 14:36, “Yet not what I will, but what you will” and hopefully you’ll come to a place where you can reflect the author’s prayer of “God I love You. I don’t love this situation. But I love You. Therefore, I have everything I need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and walking through until I get to the other side of this.” The place to where ultimately we can chose to live loved. Not when the trials of the rejection have ended, but “while you’re in the middle of the journey, and know that what He has in mind for you is so much more than you imagined.”
Just as the author successfully accomplishes throughout this book the empowerment of overcoming rejection, the strength to press forward, and the reassurance that time will aid in the healing; she concludes with a declaration in attempts to once again remind you that “rejection is NOT your final destination.”
This book often brought forth to my mind Genesis 50:20 “What satan uses to harm us, God can use for our good.” I was able to reflect upon my rejections in life and see the actual deliverance from each one, to grow from them and to see God at work to refine me as result. The author summarizes this perfectly as “the emotions that feel so intense today will ease up over time as long as we let them. We just have to watch how we think and talk about this rejection. If we give it the power to define us, it will haunt us long-term. But if we only allow it enough power to refine us, the hurt will give way to healing.”
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“And we know that in all things God worlds for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”