Accepted

"In fact, sometimes what seems like rejection from our perspective is God's way of protecting us from a situation that was never quite as dazzling as it seemed in the first place." -Natalie Lloyd, Brio&Beyond

How many times I have just wanted to scream, just break down and cry because of the ugly feeling of being rejected. Not necessarily just in guy/girl relationships, but in circumstances such as all my friends getting together for a party and I wasn't invited, or joining a new church and being scrutinized and avoided, etc. So many times, in so many ways, I've wanted something so badly, just a smile or a touch, a word of encouragement, and I'm met with the opposite. I've felt rejected, unwanted, awkward, misplaced.

"Lesley, dad and I have discussed the matter and it looks like we're going to move."

I remember those words slamming me like an invisible punch to my stomach. Where one minute I had been putting clothes on hangers in the closet, the next I was sinking into the floor, crying and protesting against this, it couldn't happen. I'd built my life around the people there, it's what I understood, it had been my life for the past four years. Naturally I had risen to a place of leadership among my friends. As the oldest I sort of led my little pack... and I had to give it up? Moving meant a new house, a new church, new friends and a new life, a clean slate and starting all over again. I hated moving.

It didn't help me much when we finally did pack up and move out that hardly anyone spoke to me. We arrived here in April. I made one friend down the street, and that was it. The girls at church turned up their noses at me, whenever they hung out with me, I learned it was due to parental urging. For almost five months, I barricaded myself in my room, it was my sanctuary, the one place I felt truly accepted. I read the entire set of Lord of the Rings in under a month. I don't think I've ever read so much in one summer before or since.

Fall came, and with it, new friends at school. Socially deprived for so long, I clung to my new friendships as eighth grade progressed. Ninth grade broke those frienships, and the summer after I made new ones, then those were estranged from me after tenth grade because they graduated and went away. I picked up with another girl my junior year, and then she graduated. Which brings me to now, where I know everyone, and yet hardly anyone. After losing friends, being betrayed, and left to drift time and again, I didn't want to trust. I can confidently say that out of the hundred-plus people I see every week, two or three may actually know what I'm about. You know the phrase "don't put all you eggs in one basket?" Yeah, that's me with my information.

As much as I hate being rejected, it's been my task to be the rejector in certain circumstances. I feel about as awful rejecting someone as I do being rejected.

One humorous incident in Mexico was a conversation I had in broken English with a young father at one of the VBS nights. At first I didn't know what to expect... but it seemed that he was only curious about the group, where we came from, how long we would be staying, when would we be back? When I explained that we'd finish up the week, and not be back for another year, he looked disappointed. Then he wanted to know about me, and I figured I'd humor him and answer his questions.

"Where you from?"
"Tennessee, a long way away."
"How long you drive from Tennessee?"
"About 20 hours."
"No! Twenty?"
shaking of head, then a pause as he watched the children making crafts.

"You boyfriend in Tennessee?"
I remember giggling at the thought, then saying, "No, no boyfriend."
"No?! ...Why?"
"Because I don't, I did not want any."

Which in a way was the truth... but still, his question struck a nerve. Sort of like an old scar which was pricked with a needle. "No, I was rejected, and I rejected them," is what I felt like saying, it would've been the truth, but I didn't want to get into that.

"Well, you are very beautiful, boy will be lucky."
And then he left with his young son.

It's not like I'm opposed to dating like some people I know, God has just never given me the green light. Looking back on it now, I can see how having a relationship in my life would've been a bad idea. God was hardly existent in my life, I was living in the moment, in my emotions, and if I'd had a boyfriend... Lord have mercy, and I'm not kidding.

So while I still go through bouts of loneliness, it's never as severe as it was before I found God again. He is my first love, my life raft in this ocean, and all I have to do is cling to Him. I love Him, I thank Him for my life, for taking an interest in my life, for allowing himself to be flogged and hung on a tree, just so I can come to Him in prayer and spend time with Him. Wow. This guy, this strong, understanding, selfless being, will do anything for me, to demonstrate His love, so that I may never be rejected, but always loved.