I felt so rejected!

Oh how easily my heart can be broken! Here is to vulnerability! Our staff Christmas party was scheduled for last Saturday. We had planned it for weeks, talked about the food, the games, the while elephant exchange..everything was set. It was going to be at our home, so we spent several days getting things ready, rearranging furniture to accommodate everyone, cleaning, shopping, prepping for the meal… you know the usual. Then Saturday came and people started texting: I can’t make it, it is unsafe to drive, I can’t come, my family threw a surprise birthday party, I can’t come I have a family member dying……… with every text my heart sank deeper into despair. There were several people who came and we had a great time of conversations, good food, stories, and a while elephant gift exchange (I scored a Pregnancy test!).

But I have to admit that it took me 1 ½ days to get dig my head and heart out of the rejection I felt. I know, these were all very legitimate reasons, and in my head I totally understood and endorsed the decisions, but my heart was another matter. I felt rejected, wondering if anything I do mattered, wondering if LifeLine has any purpose, wondering how terrible a person I am. In my head I knew it had to do with my childhood and the abandonment I experienced, but in my heart it felt like the end of the world. As Ann of Green Gables would have said “I am in the depth of despair”.

There were a number of things I learned from this:
Don’t find your identity and purpose in people - I have to have a higher source.
Don’t assume the worst of people, I don’t know the battle they are fighting.
Don’t be so self absorbed that I think everything evolves around me.
Take a nap, it will cure most ills!
Stop having your mind spin around the same issue, read a good book.

We all encounter perceived rejection, we all get our hearts broken, we all lose sight of what matters. We need to find the tools to make the adjustments to learn, grow and move on. If we look at today’s world we can see what happens when we don’t deal with our emotions: we see anger, resentment, and hurt, we see violence, we see broken hearts and souls that turn to escapes that cause harm in the future.

Yes, my heart was broken, but today, I stand up, stand strong and do what I can do to make a difference in this world.