FEBRUARY

This month I had the opportunity to share a Sunday morning message with Dover Friends Church in Wilmington, Ohio. Actually they had invited me to share in January, but lucky for all of us we were snowed in that weekend and church was cancelled. I say *lucky* not because we got to stay home but because my message wasn't ready yet. It needed to--as my chef husband would say--simmer and season a bit more before it was truly ready to be consumed.

The topic of my message was "rejection". Randy and I were blindsided by rejection during the last week of December, so it was very fresh on my heart in January. Too fresh. Too painful. If church hadn't been cancelled that Sunday I would have spoken specifically about the hurts we had experienced. The lies. The betrayals. And I would have shared this advice from Jesus:

"Whatever village or town you enter, search for a godly man who will let you into his home until you leave for the next town. Once you enter a house, speak to the family there and say, ‘God’s blessing of peace be upon this house!’ And if those living there welcome you, let your peace come upon the house. But if you are REJECTED, that blessing of peace will come back upon you. And if anyone doesn’t listen to you and REJECTS your message, when you leave that house or town, shake the dust off your feet as a prophetic act that you will not take their defilement with you. Mark my words, on the day of judgment the wicked people who lived in the land of Sodom and Gomorrah will have a lesser degree of judgment than the city that REJECTS you, for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah did not have the opportunity that was given to them!" -Matthew 10:11-15 (The Passion Translation)

A bit harsh, perhaps, with all that defilement and judgment and Sodom and Gomorrah talk. I knew I needed to move on, to move forward, to shake the dust off my feet and not feel the hurt anymore. But the rejection was so overpowering. I started having dreams--moments of rejection from my life that I didn't even know I had suppressed--and suddenly I wasn't just dealing with the current rejection, but all the rejections of the past.

I knew that church being cancelled in January was a blessing. And an opportunity. An opportunity for me to pray and seek God and wrestle with the Scriptures to see how I could possibly move forward. And what message God really wanted me to share with Dover Friends Church.

And so that's what I did. I prayed. I read. I listened. And slowly I began to learn a few things.

(1) I learned that there are times when you do need to--as Jesus said in Matthew 10--"shake it off". Not because God is going to take vengeance into His own hands and throw those who reject you into a firey furnace, but because if you don't shake it off you can't and won't move on.

One of the dreams that I had during this month of processing was of a rejection I faced in college. I was working for the college literary magazine and a group of my peers, who were friends of my friends, ridiculed my writing. To my face. I was devastated. And I couldn't shake it off. I allowed my hopes and dreams of being a writer to be crushed by their opinions. I was too afraid of being rejected again so I never took a single writing class as an undergraduate student. It wasn't until I enrolled in Seminary, years later, that I began taking creative writing classes. But even then I dropped out before completing my degree. THAT is why Jesus tells us to shake it off. Because if we don't, we won't move on and we'll miss out on His plans for us.

(2) The second thing I learned is that what we experience as rejection isn't always rejection. I call this the "it's not you, it's me" lesson.

(The challenge with asking God to teach you is that He will often put you in situations that require you to learn. So, as I studied rejection, I of course had to face it again.) While browsing through Facebook a couple weeks ago, I saw that one of my clients had posted a job advertisement... for my job! Later that day I received the e-mail I was now expecting, explaining that my contract would be closed at the end of the month. Of course my gut-reaction was to feel rejected. I clearly wasn't meeting their expectations. But it's way easier to mask your emotions through e-mail, so I responded with fake cheerfulness, "We've had a good run!" A follow-up response from them explained how my work had enabled them to grow to the point that they could now afford to have a full-time staff person in the office to do what I had been doing remotely and part-time for over 4 years. My being "let go" wasn't a rejection at all! I had actually done so well that I had worked myself out of a job. They were moving forward, and I could too, easily brushing off those momentary feelings of rejection.

(3) The third thing I learned from my time of searching the Scriptures is that Jesus wasn't joking when He said to forgive your enemies and bless those who curse you. I certainly was not in this place in January, when I fully intended on naming names and throwing those names under the bus for all to see. But the more I sat with these lessons, the more I felt Jesus whisper, "I really mean it." Let's look at His exact words:

"God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven." -Matthew 5:11-12

"But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you." -Luke 6:27-28

Our "natural" reaction when we are hurt is to lash out, to hurt back, to defend our honor. But for those who call themselves followers of Jesus, we are called to a higher path. One in which we not only turn the other cheek, but pray for our persecutors to be blessed. (And mean it!) When we can do that, we can move forward.

(4) The final thing I learned didn't come from the Bible at all (at least I haven't been able to find it yet!). And that is: get a haircut. This didn't come to me by any Divine revelation, but "this I knew experimentally" (in the words of Quaker founder, George Fox). I felt that I had moved on in my heart from the rejection that Randy and I experienced in December, but it wasn't until I got a haircut that I felt I had actually moved on with my life.

That might sound silly, but it reminds me of a conversation that I had with a dear friend and kindred spirit during a gathering of young adults some years ago. We had just had a profound time of worship, after which everyone scattered. Some went running (literally). Some gorged themselves on donuts and pizza and other celebratory foods. Some held hands or formed cuddle puddles (Google it!). Some danced or sang or cried. My friend said that after an intense spiritual experience, we often want to do something physical--tangible--with that energy/enthusiasm/awareness. So we eat, we run, we kiss, we dance. In my case, I got a haircut. And it was the absolute cherry on top of my month of searching and praying and experiencing God. I can say now that the past is truly in the past. And I'm ready for a new thing to come in March!

-KUT