A breathless fear filled my lungs. My feet swiftly trekked on while my mind chose to not think of what could have lurked beyond the dark wild. A protective bear or towering moose could have easily been watching my every move, awaiting their moment. Thankfully, if they were, they refrained the temptation.
This is what I had come for, why I had woken up in the middle of the night and endured darkness. I walked up to the frosted lake. The sun’s rays were barely beginning to break the barrier of a sleeping horizon. The pitch-black atmosphere was being filled with a warning of light. Just enough light to be able to see a hint of fog dancing on top of the reflective water, to see the mountains’ silhouette against the starry dawn. Just enough light to see my breathe escape my lips, to see my boots find a place to perch while the first rays of a new morning graced my skin. The breathless fear returned, but this time it was an awestruck fear of the backdrop I found myself against.
On this hike to this new dawn, I knew I was being chased. It wasn’t by a hungry bear anticipating hibernation. It was by a relentless God who had been watching my suppression for a while now. Suppressing the pain I convinced myself I shouldn’t be feeling because I should be past it by now, right? Suppressing the replaying reel of memories, wishing it all didn’t look this way. Suppressing the desire to be or look like someone else because my skin didn’t seem to be fitting as well as everyone else’s.
I had become an expert of acting like I am ok, and convincing myself I am in fact, ok. Yet, deep down, I knew when you ignore pain, you ignore joy. When you muzzle the ache of pain, you muzzle the freedom of love. I was unintentionally suppressing God’s love while I was desperately trying to escape my disappointment, my pain… my reality.
The story my so-called reality was telling me was full of rejection. It was a story saying:
He will always choose someone else.
Your chair at the table among friends is expendable.
Your qualification and abilities aren’t up to par on this course, or any for that matter.
You’ve run out of time for your desires to be manifested into a story worth telling.
It was saying, who you are and what you have to offer isn’t wanted. So, good luck out there in the world, we’ll see how this one ends.
Rejection is painful and pain isn’t fun or ideal. Rejection can feel like the rug was pulled out from under you, like you were punched in the gut by a guy named Rocky. The thing about it is it doesn’t even have to be true. Rejection is a master liar, manipulator and deceiver. It can turn any situation, relationship, outcome to make it seem like it was rejection, to make it seem like you are always the problem, to make it seem like no body will want or choose you.
So, we fight back in the same way. We spin and reframe stories to take the edge off a sharp-edged sword of pain, shame and rejection. Anything to not feel that steel blade prick our hearts & affirm the lie: maybe we are reject-able. Maybe we are worthless.
So, I suppressed. I told myself it didn’t matter, it was better this way. I pretended like it didn't happen. But God is an expert Creator and Redeemer. He wanted to reframe the past and reframe the story in light of Truth. The reality God wanted me to face was just that… the truth. I had convinced myself of a false reality. The truth was I was hurting. I felt misunderstood, looked over, misspoken of, and I did feel rejected. So much so and without even realizing it, I aimed to soften the blow of rejection by man through the arms of acceptance by man. I wanted my wounds of rejection to be healed by the ones who wounded me, or at least by someone similar. But like always, God had something better in mind, fueling his chase after my heart,
“Let me heal your wounds with my acceptance of you. I’ve been rejected by man, I know the pain first hand. But I also know the only remedy is my love.” Tears began to fall on this frosted morning as I felt the whisper of mercy within my heart.
I realized in my suppression, I was ultimately saying to God, “your acceptance of me isn’t good enough.” I wanted acceptance I could see, I wanted love to physically be standing in front of me. I had been so deeply hurt, over and over, and so badly wanted the pain to cease. I was running toward everything and everyone else to tell me I am worth it, tell me you’ll fight for me, tell me you like, appreciate and approve of who I am. The result was suffocating my soul. In efforts to avoid rejection and feel like I am worthwhile again, I was losing who I am. So afraid that who I am would be rejected, I hid myself.
The truth in my mind and the truth of my days were no longer married. I had to be honest, I had to allow the truth to set me free. A question was impressed on my heart, “Is my acceptance of how I made you, who you are, enough? Is the fact that I accept and love you enough?”
My head wanted to rush a response with, “of course! I know God is enough.” But that faint whisper in my heart stopped my escape room type prayer, scrambling to get out of this moment, and showed me the hard truth, “No. Your love and acceptance is not enough. Well it is… only if it is paired with his/her/their acceptance of me too.”
that frozen tear
I hadn’t cried in months, I hadn’t really felt anything in months. Suppressing what’s really going on within us will do that. It silences who we are, and it withholds the beautiful moments of healing and joy that we can have with God. I looked down and resting on a few strands of blonde locks was a frozen tear. Shapely exactly as you would imagine a teardrop to be shaped as… a teardrop. Frozen in time. The frigid air had taken hold of a vulnerable moment God was not allowing me to melt away from. He was not about to waste even one solitary tear. For so long, I shamed myself in how I felt. I shouldn’t have done this, I shouldn’t have said it like that, I shouldn’t be dealing with this still, I should have known better. The list of “I should’s and I shouldn’t” had been running through my mind like a Hallelujah chorus for far too long.
But God’s love is void of should’s and filled with safety. This frozen tear reminded me of how gracious God is in our weakest moments; to take our tears and create a lake full of purpose.
When I allowed God to be enough, to seek Him instead of seeking the audience around me to applaud or accept me, I began to believe I am enough. I am worthy because God is worthy. I am wanted because God chose me. I am strong because His strength never fails. I belong because I am His.
God is constantly creating for us, creating new things in us and all around us. He is flipping the script daily.
He takes my weighted bitterness and gives me fearlessness to forgive.
He takes my stained memories and creates a whole future.
He takes the shameful accusations and replaces them with an esteemed freedom.
We need to stop allowing other people’s wounds to affect our worth. Stop allowing our own wounds to affect our worth.
Not allowing moments of failure, inadequacy, or rejection to define us. Choosing to not fight in efforts to prove who we are or who we are not like we are fighting the current of water to not take us under. Allowing God’s Truth of who He says we are to speak louder into our worth than any accusation holding a megaphone.
That new dawn on a wintry lake was just that; a new dawn of coming out of hiding and hiding in His love. Walking out of the shadows of hiding who I am, with no fear of rejection. Hiding myself in His love where I am fully found and wholly accepted.
I flew out of a new morning and landed back into a dark night. I felt more alone when I got back home than I did sitting by myself on a rocky beach. The need to be who “they” wanted me to be began to speak. Prove to someone, anyone, that I am worth it. That I am fun, carefree… that I am not who they say I am. I felt the cycle of performance creep back up… would I say the wrong thing to turn them away, make the right jokes so he knows I’m funny. I was pulling my chair up to a table over and over again, trying to make myself fit at this table or that table. And I was tired. The hike to the bank of this lake was not nearly as exhausting as trying to fit myself in a square peg. This shadow of who I thought I should be was eclipsing who I really was.
But thank God I remembered.
The more I believed God’s acceptance and love was worth it, the more I trusted how He created me was enough and worth it. In moments I find myself wanting to gain the approval, love or acceptance from man I remind myself of the all-encompassing love of God. Love that knows us intimately and fights for us fiercely. Love that never shames us to be further along, but heals us exactly where we are.
Then before I knew it, everything I was hoping to remember became the only way I knew how to live. I was living out of a reframed story of love and approval. Sure of the fact that I do not need the approval of man, but rather, the love of God is all I need to quench my thirsty-for-love soul.
