Shine Bright

In the past few weeks I have struggled with feelings of rejection and even just awkwardness trying to reconnect and try to build new relationships with people. This has been a struggle I have had for years. I know my identity in Christ and that Jesus doesn’t reject me, yet I also still struggle with a part of me that picks up and holds onto the wounds of those moments where we feel brushed off or forgotten or where I just don’t like how I look or even act. It is so easy to sit in those moments of pain and question what I did wrong or even prejudge other relationships out of fear and to live out of those wounds when they happen. It can often feel painful and embarrassing to be right back in a place of hurt and even at times, (just calling it what it is: judgment.)

YUCK!

Yet I am reminded, Jesus was despised and rejected. Yet, he loved us greatly and had no problem going into the most unseemly places to love those who were despised in his day. He wasn’t afraid to touch the Leper or to sit at the table of the tax collector or to allow a harlot to wash his feet with her tears. He was despised, rejected, judged, accused of witchcraft, yet he loved greatly! His love didn’t come from his dependency on people, but His relationships with His Father.

Tonight, in my own time the Lord gave me a picture of how when we sit in a box of our own wounds when we try to fix them on our own, it is like setting ourselves on display with our anger and wounds just radIating out of us. Instead of others experiencing love from us, they eventually experience our wounds and go the other way.

I saw the Father come and lift this wounded part of my soul that was feeling rejected out of this yucky box and into this warm loving heart that was like a thick gooey hug of His love that sticks to you and smells and feels amazing. Suddenly what was coming from this part of me was Joy and love that was contagious.

I know this picture may seem simple yet it is profound, because it wasn’t my ability to put myself into his arms that healed my wounds, it was Him removing this part of me from my own anger and hurt that healed me and also changed how I felt.

Rejection can come and it can hurt, yet our job isn’t to fix it or even to always try to figure out why we were rejected. Sometimes the biggest thing we can do in those Moments is rest in the Father’s love because he has surrounded us with his presence that heals wounds and gives us the ability to love others and not be afraid of rejection.