Rejected, but Rising...

I was trembling.

Inside and out.

Shaken to the core, that something I had merely given a chance had all but collapsed in front of me.

I didn’t even ever claim it to be a dream of mine, but it had just come down to what do I do?

SO I threw myself into something and heaved upon it great expectations.

But rejection came in the form of three paragraphs, with no personal explanation.

It came on a day, when I was working and unashamedly refreshing my email for the 6:00 EST time of arrival.

A day, when I had already surrendered the outcome on my morning commute, but even still, to say the pangs of rejection weren’t felt in the depths of my heart and soul, would be a lie.

And so two little women walked me up the stairs and sat me down, and began to speak their truth. They refused the rejection and buried it into the ground with the hope for better things, newer things. They sang of future triumph and joy, all wasn’t lost.

I sat in my heap of tears. I sat and listened. I longed for reprieve.

I muttered to myself that I was a walking contradiction.

How could I surrender the outcome just a few hours ago and still be torn to pieces?

But even so, the tears wouldn’t let up.

The sobs wouldn’t escape into oblivion.

Those two had to leave and so I continued to sit in silence. Until another woman unlocked the office door and before she could say anything, she just came up and held me. She held me with all of her might.

She painted a picture of hope rising and instilled within me that this just wasn’t a part of His plan. She reminded me with the twill of her British accent, that I was still needed here. That for some reason, things weren’t coming, progress wasn’t being made, because I needed to wait. I needed to rest. I needed to hope.

She walked me through the pain with her soft-spoken, beautifully blunt words and all but refused the power this lie of rejection had over me.

I saw Jesus that day. I heard Jesus that day.

He didn’t come in the form of a burning bush telling me what to do next, nor where to go.

He came in the form of a British woman going out of her way to avoid work for thirty minutes and just hold me.

He spoke through her in that tiny office and he went out of His way to remind me that it was okay to hurt for a time, but I couldn’t hold onto to it in the days to come.

He used her to tell me to rise.

To rise and refuse, that this was all there would be.

Jesus came to me that day in the form of three women customers, who I’ve known for years, wrapping me up in words of wisdom and offering their hope to take the place of my hopelessness.

Jesus came to me in the form of strangers, huddled in prayer, acknowledging the pain of something lost, and the beginning of stumbling onto more to be found.

I saw Jesus. I heard Jesus.

And on that day, when I thought, talks of moving somewhere in the states would begin; I stumbled onto something even more beautiful.

I felt rejection, but I felt hope rising.

I felt alone, but I was held in the arms of many.

On that day, rejection came to me in the form of a letter, but Jesus came to me in the form of His people.

I don’t know where you are as you read this, but I have a feeling rejection has come to you. It’s been received in the form of paragraphs or implied by friendships faded. It’s been the unrequited love that has kept you up at night.

Whatever it’s been, I know I haven’t been the only one dealt it.

Maybe depression has stolen someone close to you, left them to be but an empty shell- and all of you has cried out for truth to take its hold. Maybe you’ve longed to be the fixer of all that is broken, and you’re just now figuring out that that is entirely impossible, improbable.

Darling, you may have the best intentions, but you can’t fix souls. You can’t revive empty shells. You just can’t.

But you have access to the fixer. You have access to the Keeper of Souls, the Guarder of Hearts. You have access to the Bearer of all Baggage. You have access to the Healer of all Sickness.

Your Maker has power over depression. He calls people out of death, TO RISE.

Do you know that?

Do you know Him?

Do you know that He has set out to build a home, one where sadness cannot touch you, where depression cannot taint you, and where brokenness must avoid you?

He built you a home.

And He waits to eliminate the traces of rejection in whatever form they came to you, with His truth.

You can overcome, because He overcame.

So little one, RISE, and lose yourself in prayers for the hearts of those dear to you that they will find the courage to RISE, TOO.