The room is dark and silent except for the pounding in your heart. You wipe tears from your cheeks as your mind goes over and over the events that happened a little while ago. You once again feel the ache rising up inside as you suffer a familiar and un-welcomed emotion...rejection.

Remember your early childhood with that first team selection?

The teacher picks two team leaders and tells them to pick their teammates. The choosing begins. I pick Amy…and Amy happily runs over to the red team. I pick Jack…and Jack hurriedly runs over to the blue team, high-fiving his best friend the team captain. This goes on and on until the last two people are standing there like stale bread on a shelf waiting to be tossed. Red team captain dejectedly says…all right, I’ll pick Ollie, and the blue team all moans as they realize they are stuck with the last person to be chosen…you. The feeling of rejection isn’t just about “not” being chosen, it is also about being chosen last.

You are the person who sat by themselves at lunch. You are the one who swung by themselves on the playground. You were the one who sat on the back row. You were the one who only got valentines from classmates whose moms made their children give everyone a valentine. You never got the one that said, “To: my best friend Jill. Be my valentine”, and had a little chocolate in the envelope. You were the one who had her prom date canceled by the guy who only asked you… because the girl he really wanted to go with turned him down…but then later changed her mind…leaving you staring at your prom dress hanging on the door of your closet on prom night.

You have been rejected. You were chosen and then un-chosen. You are the one who married the guy who got you pregnant and promised to love you forever. He was the one who cheated on you the whole time you were together…eventually he left you for someone else. He chose you… then he un-chose you. It was now up to you to figure out how to take care of your two children, pay bills, and keep some kind of sanity in life.

You were rejected when you went for the job interview because they told you your lack of education made you unqualified for the job. And you left there shaking your head wondering how much education it took to learn how to run the shake machine and scoop ice cream? The job you did finally get was OK...until you discovered it was only temporary while the company “reorganized” and "downsized” and “consolidated positions” and “trimmed the fat”. You didn’t know when you were hired that you were the fat.

You were rejected by the welfare department when you tried to get help. They said it was because you had made more than $700 a month (the allotment for a family of three) on the job you were just “laid off” from. "You may still get hired back", they said as a consolation. You left mystified wondering how you can be “laid off” from a job that didn’t exist anymore. Wouldn’t that be like getting fired? How can you get re-hired?

You were rejected for your car loan because you found out your ex-husband had put your name on a bunch of credit cards and then didn’t pay them. You wondered whom it was that got that diamond necklace that you got charged for because you knew it wasn’t you…even though the jewelry store expected you to pay for it. You were turned down for a student loan when you tried to go back to school to get the education you needed… so that you could get the job you needed… and the car you needed.

You had friends who said they were your friends until the day came that you were desperate and needed to move. You called each one to ask if they could help, only to find out that they all had unbreakable plans that weekend and how "sorry" they were.

You are the one who emails people, calls people, inquire how they are, and no one contacts you back. You are the one who has a Facebook account with a lot of “friends” who have random things to say to each other, often about things and events you realized you knew nothing about.

You were never the "cool one". You were never the popular one. Your friends were only your friends as long as you were giving to them... or meeting some need that they had…but as soon as you started to tell them about a problem you had or a need…and they all avoided you, telling others what a “bummer’ you were to be around.

You have been chosen and then un-chosen. You were discarded. You were turned down. You were denied. You were picked last. You were used. You were deprived. You were snubbed. You were unaccepted. You were eliminated. You are broken. You are wounded. You are rejected.

And you think no one understands.

Isaiah 53:3
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not

Luke 9:22
And he said, "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."

The one who was rejected understands your life.  He will not reject you.

Psalm 63:1
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Isaiah 40:29
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

Isaiah 40:31
but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

John 14:21
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

Psalm 6:4
Turn, O LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.

Psalm 25:6
Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old.

Psalm 32:10
Many are the woes of the wicked, but the LORD's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him

Psalm 33:22
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory.

Amen

You are accepted. you are loved. You are chosen. You are forgiven. You are healed of your brokeness. You are special. You are fulfilled. You are never alone. You are always understood and known. You have everything you need according to God's riches in glory.  You are a vital member of his house and a beloved child. 

Psalm 27:10
Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me

Psalm 94:14
For the LORD will not abandon His people,Nor will He forsake His inheritance.

Lord,

I am here, broken and in need of healing. I don't understand everything but I know I believe in you and what you did for me on the cross. I want to follow you. I want you in my life. Flood me now with the peace that passes all understanding. Hold me in the arms of your love. Fill me with your spirit. Let me be "new" today dear Lord. I want to be your child and you be my father. The one who will never leave me, never forsake me, for now and into the next life forever and ever. Thank you Lord for loving me!

Amen