Overcoming Rejection

The Roots of Rejection

God intended that all children were to be wanted children and that they were to receive unconditional affection in all circumstances from emotionally healthy parents who reflected the parental nature of God to their children. In this ideal setting, children will feel accepted, failure would never be a threat and love would be unconditional.

Everyone has a personal eternal spirit that enters the body at the time of conception.

From that time on, this spirit is sensitive and vulnerable to spiritual influences around it.

The foetus can sense rejection, fear and other negative emotions that leave wounds. The foetus can also sense positive emotions that give security and peace.

Intrauterine foetal wounds are some of the most severe and long-lasting injuries that a person can have. A child who has survived a failed abortion attempt may struggle for his whole life with the feeling that he has no right to be alive and that he should die. An unwanted pregnancy and the negative emotions the parents display toward the foetus can leave the child feeling rejected. 

After a child is born, the baby can feel rejected if the mother is unable to bond for whatever reason. If parents are too busy, the child may interpret this as rejection. Many parents are disappointed with the sex of their baby, and the baby can sense this and may interpret it as rejection.

When children are physically awkward, they may not be accepted by other children, and this commonly leaves wounds of rejection. They are very self-conscious of their appearance or behaviour and can easily feel the wound of rejection if they don’t fit in.

Rejection can even be felt by children of well-meaning parents who fail to hug, touch or express affection. This creates an environment of emotional neglect. 

When a sibling dies or parents separate, a vulnerable child may feel rejected by the departing family member and may even feel responsible for the loss, which then triggers self-rejection. 

Children who have never met their fathers or who were abandoned by them suffer from a very deep wound of rejection.

All forms of abuse are types of rejection. During the abuse, the body is used, while the spirit and soul of the victim are being rejected and devalued.

Childhood and adolescence are the times of greatest vulnerability to rejection, since this is when people need repetitive reassurance to build confidence and a healthy self-image.

Childhood rejection leaves very deep and lasting wounds that make children very vulnerable to Satan’s lies. These lies can control a person’s behaviour for life.

What is the Way Out?

We have to first accept that regardless of how good our upbringing was, we all have a love deficit that is so large no human love can fill it.

It can only be filled with God’s love. We have all been wounded and have areas of emotional bondage. The good news is that God totally accepts us the way we are and that each of us is unique and special to Him. 

Jesus loved us when we were at our worst. He didn’t reject us then, and He doesn’t reject us now. If we don’t accept ourselves, we imply that God made a mistake with us. This is a terrible wound that many of us carry. 

Jesus never rejects His children, and we never have to perform to win His approval. He approves of us because He bought us, and there is nothing we have to do but accept it. Jesus wants you to relax in His presence and love.

Jesus knows what it’s like to suffer the pain of rejection and abandonment, and He cares for those of us who are experiencing it. Let’s look at how Jesus was described in Isaiah 53:2-5.

“He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” Jesus knows what it’s like to be physically unappealing

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Jesus was not exempt from the emotional pain.

To come to freedom, we have to recognize our wounds and pain so that we can bring them to the cross. We can be totally honest with God about our feelings and brokenness.

He knows what it’s like to hurt. He wants to carry our wounds for us. 

When Satan was defeated by the cross, Jesus broke the power of lies so that we could be free of our emotional bondage. We must give Him our tormenting thoughts, wounds, sins and lies so He can dispose of them on the cross. Allow Him to fill your mind with new thoughts of peace, joy and full acceptance.

Why is Forgiveness so Important?

First and foremost, forgiveness is a command. We have to forgive those who have rejected us.

Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” The Lord commands us to forgive others, the same way He has forgiven us.

When you don’t forgive someone, you remain a prisoner to the pain and hurt they caused you, regardless of how long ago it happened. The very presence of that grudge in your heart gives Satan permission to continuously stir the pot of emotional pain and resentment.

What is Forgiveness?

Forgiveness is giving up your right to hold someone accountable for their sin against you.

It doesn’t mean that you are letting them off the hook. It means that you are setting yourself free from the pain and anger that has connected you to them for so long. When you choose to forgive, it does not mean you will forget what happened; rather, it means that the event will no longer have the same emotional control over you that it used to have.

Forgiveness releases the power of God to bring healing into the wounded places of your heart.

It is a very self-serving act. You forgive because you want to be set free. You no longer want to be a prisoner of that bondage.

Source: Emotionally Free by Grant Mullen