A few days ago, I came across a good friend's notes stuffed in between the pages of an old diary. We had some really good times but it ended when she allowed the rejection in her life to destroy our friendship.
Rejection is the most common in many people's lives and often, the deepest wounds that man has to endure. I pen this down so that you will understand what the causes are, and there are solutions to this problem. Everyone suffers from rejection at one time or another. I don't have a deep problem of rejection but my stronghold is sth else which I shall mention it when I write about Deliverance.
Rejection is a crushed or wounded spirit. In Prov 18:14, it says that "A man's spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?"
Proverbs 15:13 "A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit."
Wounds in the spirit are difficult to diagnose. They go to a level deeper than the human mind. Many people carry wounds in them that they are not conscious of. Their minds wont face them and their memory doesnt recall them. But it is there! It is in the innermost part of the soul, often it goes back into many years - their childhood.
I attended a Healing, Wholeness & Deliverance seminar many years ago by Ellel Ministries. The lessons helped me to differentiate the wounded heart from the sinful heart and godly heart. But today, I want to concentrate on the wounded or crushed spirit.
There are 10 root causes but I'll mention the common ones that I have time & again come across in counselling & interacting with people :
1) A mother carries a child in her womb. The mother is pregnant but she doesnt really want the child for various reasons : financial hardship, bad relationship with hubby, busy climbing the corporate ladder or she is not married. She may not say she resents the baby but the attitude is in her heart. The foetus is a person who is v sensitive to attitudes. Such a child when born, will have a sense of rejection.
2) A parent may favour one child above the rest. The child who is not particularly favoured will suffer from rejection.
3) A child's parents do not physically demonstrate their love for their child. A child who receives little physical affection or touch tends to become a rejected child. The parents provide everything for their child - from clothes to holiday and a good education & a comfortable home but they fail to give the one thing that is important to that child - themselves.
4) Divorced parents do affect the child badly. Usually, it is the mother who takes care of the children by herself. The child of such a divorce may have had a warm loving relationship with the father, but suddenly the father is no longer there. His leaving creates an aching void in the child's heart which causes the child to feel rejected.
5) Infidelity. If the father has gone off with another woman or has a relationship outside, the child's reaction is this : bitterness toward the father & hatred toward the other woman. What the child has now is a deep wound of rejection, and in his heart, he says, "The person I loved & trusted the most has abandoned me. From now on, I can never trust anyone." The feeling of rejection becomes worse if the mother cannot bring herself to forgive her husband and begins to 'neglect' the child because she is burying herself in her own sorrows. So now, there is rejection coming from both parents.
6) When either spouse rejects the other. Often the feeling of betrayal accompanies the feeling of rejection. When a person is betrayed, she may say, "No one will ever get another chance to hurt me like that." This is a natural reaction but it is also dangerous coz it will open you up to a 2nd problem - defensiveness - which is the reaction of someone who has been hurt once too often. Defensiveness says, "Ok, I'll go through life, but I will never let anyone come near enough to hurt me like that again. I'll always keep a wall between me & other people."
God has created every human being an insatiable desire to be loved & to feel love. Every child longs for the father's love & the love of the father gives security. When that is absent, the child grows up with insecurity, anger & resentment in him and often, he/she fears the opinions of men.
Let me give you a real scenario - A woman was given away to a family when young. The spirit of rejection has long set in because she was born out of wedlock. In her new home, she didnt receive love. When she becomes an adult, she marries & has children. But because of her rejection spirit, she is not able to have an intimate relationship with her husband one that speaks of unity & love. Although she loves her children, she disciplines them harshly & seems to have difficulty in loving them unconditionally. Her marriage takes a long time to heal even though she is a christian. She could not bring herself to face her childhood rejection because it was too painful for her.
The more aggressive mother finds herself hating one of her children (often the more disobedient one). Her hatred is unreasonable & she cannot control it.
I am not pinpointing any particular person, but the above is more or less a common scenario in the many counselling sessions I had over the years.
Once the wounds of rejection sinks into a person's soul, it changes the person's behaviour. A person with a healthy image of himself/herself (a spirit of acceptance - the opposite of rejection) will be better able to handle the ups & downs of any relationship .. not perfectly coz we are always learning to be better. In my next blog, I shall write about the results of rejection.
With much Love, ♥ Mum