Ladies, this one's for you. But before I begin: I HIGHLY recommend reading the following books because a lot of what I’m gonna say comes from them. Two must reads: Captivating by John and Stasi Eldridge and Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst. Those two books changed my life.
My whole life I believed I was no one. I had friends who would be my best friend and then one day decide we were done being friends, that someone else was better and had more to offer. I had friends intentionally leave me out of things, knowing full well I wanted to be a part of what they were doing, but making up excuses to why I couldn't be a part of their group. I would sit at lunch for years surrounded by people, girls I wanted to be friends with, but feeling alone. I would go to events, surrounded by people, but feel rejected when I wasn't being talked to. I spent my life feeling like I was no one's first pick. If my friends had to choose a partner for something, pick someone to be with, it wouldn't be me. It would always be someone else. They would have parties and not invite me. They would go do fun things with one or two other friends, but not reach out to me. Not only that, but I was never pursued by a boy. Every girl knows that feeling-- like you aren't good enough to be someone's girlfriend, wondering why not me? My whole life I lived from a place of rejection. I was nobody. I was unwanted. I was unloved. I was not desired. I was awkward, anxious, ugly, stupid, weird. I wasn't anybody. I was nobody.
And for so many years I lived from this place of being rejected. And I thought I was the only one who faced garbage like this. I was alone in this world of 8 billion people in feeling like I was unwanted. Oh how wrong I was. My summer before junior year I got the chance to hear the story of one of my friends who I had always looked to as someone who was happy, content, and wanted by people in her life. People picked her. Turns out she felt so many of the same things I felt-- alone in a crowded room, undesired, and abandoned by friends in her life. For the first time in my life I began to see that I wasn't the only one who faced these things.
You see, the devil makes us believe that we are the only one facing the struggles we do. He makes us feel isolated in our loneliness, our shame, our guilt, our hatred, our lies, and our rejection. My worst years of my life were the years I thought I was alone in the world in the things I was feeling. My worst years of my life were the ones I spent chasing after people instead of the One I should I have been chasing after. My worst years of my life I thought happiness came from having a best friend. My worst years of my life I chased after all the things I thought would bring me joy when the one person that would bring me joy was chasing after me. I can't remember the exact moment I stopped chasing after all the wrong things, the moment when I realized I was pursuing things that would never bring me joy. One specific moment does come to mind though. It was my sophomore year and I was laying on the floor of my room at about 11 pm and I was sobbing. I was crying out to God in so much relational pain that I couldn't bear anymore. Once again, I was left feeling rejected and abandoned by people in my life and I physically, mentally, and emotionally couldn't take it anymore. I'd put some worship music on but it wasn't doing much. Then the song "Running to You" came on by Mosaic MSC. The very first lines of that song are this: "Breathe into these bones. Speak to waves and winds. There's no storm stronger than the power of your love." And in that moment I remember feeling this presence enter my room and this extreme peace come over me and God say to me, "Just wait, I am not finished yet." And in that moment I remember thinking I was going to be okay because the Lord was still working because, like the song says, there is NO storm stronger than the power of God's love. My feeling of rejection didn't go away right away. My pain and my feeling of being unwanted were still there and still would be for a long time. But I knew that the God I believed in loved me. He wanted me even when the world didn't seem to. He desired me when I felt like no one did. He chose me first.
I think for some of us today God is saying exactly what He said to me on the floor of my room: "Just wait, I'm not finished yet." Life is beating you down, making you to feel unwanted, unloved, and rejected. We feel like we are no one's first pick. But God is standing up in heaven looking down on you saying, "I choose you. I want you. I love you. I treasure you. I desire you. I have redeemed you child. Your past mistakes are just that: the past. I have loved you with an everlasting love. As far as the east is from the west so I have removed your sins from you." The things I went through, the feelings of rejection were not fun. They were not easy to handle. They made me feel at my worst. But as I look back on them I see God standing right beside me whispering in the intimate way He does that He loved me. He wants me. He chooses me. The question you have to ask is this: how is God whispering into my life? I promise you that whatever struggle you are facing in life God is walking right beside just asking you to turn to Him. So often we run full force towards things we think will make us happy when really God is right beside we just have to slow down and turn towards Him. It took me years to realize that while I chased after all these relationships in my life to find fulfillment, God wanted to fulfill me right where I was at. A quote from Lysa TerKheurst is this: "God's love isn't based on you. It is simply placed on you. And it's the place from which I should live...loved."Another says this: "Live from the abundant place that you are loved and you won't find yourself begging others for scraps of love." And my favorite of all her quotes I'll end with here:
"With Jesus I'm forever safe, I'm forever accepted, I'm forever held, completely loved, and always invited in."