Today, we dive deep into the often painful experience of rejection and how it can shape our sense of community and self-worth. Using 2 Corinthians 12:10 as our anchor, we explore the complex emotions that come with feeling rejected, especially for those of us who are more sensitive to it, like many neurodivergent individuals. I share my personal journey, touching on moments of loss and the struggles of navigating friendships that have faded, particularly in a politically charged climate. Through it all, we remind ourselves that when we feel weak, we can actually find strength in Christ. Join me as we unpack the necessity of community, the importance of self-reflection, and the journey of seeking God’s approval over others.

Takeaways:

1. Recognizing that community is essential for our emotional well-being can help us navigate rejection.
2. When we face rejection, we need to evaluate whether there is something we can learn from the experience.
3. It's important to remember that not all rejection is our fault; sometimes it's a reflection of others' issues.
4. Finding peace in our identity and value in Christ can help us cope with feelings of inadequacy or rejection.

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If you only have a couple minutes for scripture today, I got you.

Welcome to today's bite sized Bible cast.

You know how sometimes there's a verse that pops up or you sit down in church and it feels like the pastor is talking right to you and just, it feels like God plops information right in your lap right when you need it?

Yeah, that's happening today.

So we are in 2nd Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 10.

For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, horrible hardships, persecutions and calamities.

For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I.

And maybe if you have ADHD or if you're neurodivergent, you can relate to this as well.

I am very rejection sensitive and this morning I, I am feeling it.

Rejection has, to be completely honest with you, been a very big theme in my life.

I have been divorced, was basically cut out by my entire chosen family.

Multiple times I have felt like I had community, like I had found my people only to lose them.

And recently with everything that has been going on politically, I have been feeling I have lost multiple friends as a result of being pretty outspoken politically and not agreeing with the standard like American evangelical Christianity party line, so to speak.

And I found out this morning that someone I've looked up to for years, who I considered a very close friend, unfriended me on social media, which is like, it's such a silly little thing, but it just stuck in my mind.

And I've.

I've had other friends unfriend me recently as a result of politics, but this one just really stung.

And so I was already kind of like in my feelings about it.

I've talked about reading this book, I'm reading it, the Jenny Allen book right now.

Find you'd people because I just.

We were created for community.

God did create us with community in mind and so we have a need in it.

We've got a community sized hole in our hearts right alongside the Jesus shaped hole in our heart.

And community is something that is so important and that is so worth fighting for.

But when I sat down to do my quiet time today, I was already a little bit bruised, I'm not gonna lie to you.

So let me read this verse to you one more time again.

For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities.

For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Now this is not to say that rejection is always 100% of the time.

Not your fault.

You have nothing to do with it.

If people don't like you, that's a them problem all the time.

Every single time.

We we want to be able to take feedback from others.

And when you have ADHD or you are rejection sensitive for whatever reason, it can be really difficult to kind of get into the nuance there because one, we want to avoid those negative feelings.

So digging into them at all is uncomfortable and something we want to avoid.

I'm also an enneagram7.

So like, digging into the negative is not something that comes naturally to me.

But also it can be really difficult.

We can kind of tend to go to one extreme or the other.

Either I have done nothing wrong.

I don't know how this could ever be my fault.

I don't know what I could be doing differently.

I am more or less flawless.

Or this is proof that I'm a terrible person.

Everyone hates me, everyone is secretly plotting against me, etc.

I definitely.

Hold on, I'm gonna take this off.

I definitely tend to fall towards the end of the spectrum.

That's like everyone secretly hates me.

Which, not to get too much into my lore here, but has been the case multiple times for me where people were secretly like plotting my downfall behind my back while being nice to my face.

It's.

Anyway, so this verse is not to say that any form of negative feelings from other people are persecution.

We see this a lot in the church.

The church, especially in America, tends to, when called out for acting not very Christlike, cry persecution.

We're seeing that with what happened in Minneapolis with the church that got people.

Protesters came in and disrupted the service, which I do not agree with.

I do not think that was the way to handle that.

But the church reacted by going, we're being persecuted because we believe in Jesus.

No, you're not.

You're being held accountable for your actions.

Going, hey, you guys say that you believe in Jesus, but your actions don't line up is not persecution.

That's the opposite.

That's people who are outside of the church doing the church's job and holding you to the standards that you claim to follow.

But anyways, I digress.

Sometimes criticism or negative feelings or negative actions from other people towards ourselves can be a signal that there's something we need to change.

And ideally, if you are in a relationship with someone who is worth being in a relationship with and worth pouring energy into, they will have the kind of relationship with you where if they have a problem with you, they will come to you and try to repair the relationship.

If someone just distances themselves without saying or doing anything to try to repair the relationship, that's not an actual genuine relationship.

So we can look at things.

We can try to be introspective.

We can try to go, okay, what can I take from this?

But also, sometimes rejection just happens.

Jesus was rejected over and over and over again.

Even his closest companions, when he needed them the most, chose to reject him.

I mean, look at Peter, right?

Peter, who was so convinced.

Also, Peter for sure had adhd.

Like, I just.

He's walking on water.

He's cutting off the ears.

He's doing all the things.

He's then being super impulsive and denying Jesus.

Even Peter, who was like, God, Jesus, there's no way.

There's no way I'm gonna reject you.

Never.

Not me, Him.

Sure, him, sure, her, sure, me, never.

Within, like, 12 hours is rejecting Jesus not once, not twice, but three times.

So rejection is something that we as Christ followers need to kind of get familiar with, and we need to be able to use that discernment to go, okay, is this just rejection because the enemy is working, or because humans are flawed?

Or is there something I can take from this?

And when we kind of get past that point and go, okay, it doesn't seem like there's something I can do differently here.

There's.

It doesn't seem like there's repair being attempted here.

It doesn't seem like there's something I can really take from this and change in myself.

Then we kind of get into the territory of learning how to accept rejection and something that God showed me during my quiet time today, I want to read it to you.

So I said, lord, what do you want me to know today?

He said, you are loved by those I've placed in your life to love you, and ultimately by me.

Community is a need.

But like anything, it requires attention and effort and will come with time.

Seek me.

Seek my approval.

Calibrate often.

And then when I asked, what would you have me do today?

He said, continue to seek order.

Chaos is the enemy of community.

So what I want to encourage you with today from that is always, always, always seek the Lord as your reference point.

Now, obviously, we all know, and it's kind of become this meaningless platitude in the church of, like, well, just look to God.

Just give it to God.

But we need to strip away our preconceived notions of what that means and actually dig into how we can practically do that.

So when we use God, when we use Christ as our reference point and we calibrate ourselves based on him.

Then and only then can we be fully confident that we are on the right track.

So.

So with these friends who have rejected me throughout my life, yes, there are absolutely ways that I can look back and go, I messed up here.

I was not the greatest friend here.

But then there are other situations that I can look back at and go, okay, this seems to be an issue of jealousy or just general discord or just an issue within the friend group or something like that.

What?

When I am aligning my character, when I am aligning my desires with Christ, then and only then do we have the solid reference point to go to fully look at the situation and understand it and be able to move forward in a productive way.

And honestly, a lot of times it's both.

Sometimes there are situations where friends or people that we're in a relationship with or whatever are truly just being unreasonable or hurtful, or there's some bullying going on.

But oftentimes there is something we can take from it.

So instead of turning into ourselves and going, okay, trying to sift through the hurt and the feelings of indignation and the confusion, instead of trying to sift through all of that to try to find what we can take from it, we just go, all right, God, here, I can't sort through this.

I don't want to sort through this.

This is just too much.

Show me where you would have me go from here.

Show me if there's anything that needs to change in my heart, in my character, in my actions, to align more with you.

Then, and only then, can we truly have objective truth informing what we do, how we operate, how we change, or stay the same, or whatever the case may be.

So if you want to do some listening prayer on this, which I would highly, highly, highly encourage, I would break out your journal, sit down, kind of settle.

Invite the Lord in.

Quiet your heart, quiet your mind, quiet your environment as much as you reasonably can, because nothing's ever going to be perfect, especially if you've got little humans or even animals running around.

It can be really difficult to find, like, true silence.

But break out your journal.

Get as quiet as you can.

Open up your heart to the Lord, invite him in, and then ask him, what do you want me to know about this situation where I'm feeling rejected, or where do you want me to change?

Is there something you want me to change?

Seek his heart and work on pleasing him instead of trying to please others.

And it sounds so simple, but it is so difficult in actual practice.

And I am Walking through that in real time today, my first instinct is to text this friend and go, did I do something that you unfriended me on Facebook?

Like.

And also then I feel, like, a little silly because I'm like, what is this middle school where it's like, you unfriended me?

There's drama, but there's, like, indicators.

Especially as a recovering people pleaser and someone who has dealt with abuse in my lifetime, emotionally and otherwise, my alarm bells ring at the slightest little things.

It's almost like I have this very sensitive internal barometer.

And when there's, like, the tiniest little thing that, like, something ticks, like a little one tick above or one tick below, the alarm bells start going off.

And so my first instinct is to go, okay, I need to try to figure out what happened so I can fix it.

But that is not my job, not always.

And God has made it clear that it's time to lay that relationship down.

That relationship served a purpose.

That relationship and that person was a huge part of my life for a while and built into me in some really positive ways.

And I can just let that be.

That not everyone is going to come with you through every single stage of your life.

And while that's really difficult, especially when you're someone who really struggles with change and transitions, which can be really common with adhd, adhd, especially if that is the case for you, it can be really difficult to reconcile with the fact that you might need to leave someone behind in a separate season of your life.

But learning to give it to God and go, what do you want me to do here?

Because repair is important.

Scripture lays out a path, and I think it's Matthew 18 for conflict resolution between believers when one has sinned against another.

And the Bible is so clear that repair between believers is so important.

But when someone is no longer part of your community, when someone is no longer part of your circle, it's not always going to be productive to try and reach out and address issues that haven't been raised.

That's the thing.

That's something that can be really difficult for us sometimes as ADHDers, as neurodivergent people, as believers to go.

It seems like there's an issue.

I don't know what the issue is, but I'm just going to leave it.

And the only one who can tell you what the exact right call is is God.

So I want to encourage you today, especially if you're dealing with rejection, that is normal.

Rejection is going to be part of being in a community and seeking community.

And so I just want to acknowledge to you, rejection absolutely sucks.

It is the worst.

Or as I say with my kiddos, it is the stinky worst.

It sucks so much.

But it is an inevitable part of of seeking community and seeking being in a relationship with other believers.

And we are designed for that.

So learning how to deal with rejection in a way that is productive, in a way that pushes us to Christ, in a way that, that calls us to challenge ourselves, but also helps us learn when to walk away.

Because there were absolutely were times where Jesus would walk away when Jesus said, okay, this is done.

I am done.

I am not needed here any longer.

Learning when to walk away and let something come to a close.

Those are all very, very important skills.

So I want to acknowledge you are valuable.

You are loved.

God has a plan for you.

God has a plan for you to experience true community.

And he is calling you to Himself so that he can lead you where he needs you to go.

All right, that is all I have for you today.

Make sure you share this video.

If you found it helpful, I would love to hear in the comments what you are wrestling with right now.

Are you also a season of rejection?

Are you in a period where you are in thriving community and you have some ideas you'd like to share?

Whatever the case may be, I would love to hear from you.

These videos are all uploaded as podcast episodes over at the True Grit Podcast with Rachel Grit.

You can find the link to that over in my bio and I will see you in the next one.

Bye.