Overcoming Rejection to Live in God's Love (Part 1 of 2)

Hi this is Jim Daly with Focus on the Family. I want to let you know about an online experience called sea life, 20, 21 in the six episode video series were sharing stories and encouragement that will inspire and empower you to live out your pro-life views. You'll also discover valuable resources to help you step up and get involved in the cause. This is a digital experience, you and your family won't want to miss all the details are Focus on the Family.com/sea life with Jesus. We are always fully lab only accepted completely held and always invited and Lisa Turk hurst reflecting on the acceptance if you can find in God more from her on today's Focus on the Family your hostess focus president and author Jim Daly thanks for joining us I'm John Fuller there's one thing we want you to hear the day and I know this troupe releases well.

God loves you and that sometimes we lose that because things are going right relationships are going right and we get lost in the weeds and we don't feel the love of God, even though it's consistent, persistent, ever present and we are going to talk about God's love for us today.

You may be in a place where you feel inadequate you feel beaten down. You know what we're here for you have a counseling staff who can help you sort through where you're at in life and that maybe what the Lord is trying to say and it's available to just give us a call and were to give you those details in a while.

Lisa, let's not hold back. You are an infamous blogger about that infamous. I mean, you have like 2 million 3 million 18 million, how many million women are following you today at the five minutes a lot and why do you think there's that attraction to your words and your expression of your faith. What is drawing, particularly women, to you. Great question again. I think a big part of it is I'm very vulnerable with the brokenness of life, just the reality is were all broken people and people can identify with someone's brokenness. So when I write from that perspective. Everybody can identify with hurts and failures and shortcomings and inadequacies. Everybody can identify that not everybody can identify from your point of strength you now so I don't write for my point of strength I write from my point of failure, weakness, hurts, heartbreaks, and certainly with this book writing from my own struggle with rejection. So if you want to know what I struggle with didn't look at the titles of my book.

This one is uninvited, not a warm title. What were you expressing their what you trying to get across in uninvited well I think in today's social media driven world where so many of our relationships have some kind of presence on social media. I think a lot of us are walking around, having looked at social media first thing in the morning and getting this feeling of being a little bit left out little bit lonely a little bit less than it seems like everybody's house is a little better decorated in years everybody else's marriage is a little more romantic than yours. Everybody else's kids are more put together and successful than yours.

And so it can sort of develop within us. This feeling of extreme inadequacy, not something we talk about publicly, but something we certainly deal with privately. So the point of titling the book uninvited is that's really the essence of what rejection is what it feels it. It's what it feels like, and so but here's the help of the book is that when someone finishes reading uninvited. I'm going to encourage them to get a black sharpie marker and cross out the you in on the book title. So then they will understand that with Jesus. We are always fully love fully accepted, completely held and always invited.

And that's a great point. Let me ask you this.

Social media seems to be your forte, your speaker and author with social media you communicating every day with literally millions of people that's outstanding. I read something about the loneliness indexer came out a couple months ago but it said basically the loneliness index is gone up 20% over the last couple years. So even though were more connected digitally. We have communication occurring. It seems people are more lonely than they used to be. How come that's happening what I think there are several reasons for that. But one thing is the ability to filter the hardship of life out of our social media.

You know it. Think about the stuff he signed the best stuff from everybody else's life that you see. And so when you start feeling like everybody else is more than and you are less than you start to pull away from the heartfelt connections with other people that creates loneliness in a you don't have to be alone to be lonely. My loneliest times sometimes are when I'm in a room full of people and everyone is talking, but there's some sense deep inside of me that I don't belong, or that I'm not part of whatever club they are part of our I'm I don't have the same inside jokes. Everyone else in the worst feeling to me is when you're alone in a crowded room what you said there's a story. The burglar felt funny really is where you were to a dinner and you end up at a table by herself.

That is really weird. Well it's awkward you buy yourself a table that is such a great question so what happened is I walked into the dinner and I was so excited because I quit banquet full of leaders so I fully expected to get these are my people like him to be able to sit working to swap stories working to talk heart-to-heart working to share our challenges, our successes or failures like this is gonna be awesome. I crave time with people who are living the same kind of life as I am. So was really excited about this banquet. I walked in and I walked to a table where a bunch of people I knew were sitting in. There were nameplates so you know, just place cards were everybody supposed to sit where your sign. So I walked around that table my name card wasn't there.

I walked around another table, another table and finally in the back of the ramp. I finally found my name that that's awkward in and of itself when you're walking around you look elsewhere just to sit so I sit down and I didn't recognize that other people who were assigned to my table and I don't know what happened to them. It's just I didn't show up. And so the banquet starts and there I sit at a table meant for 10 people and I'm the only person and I guess other people didn't really feel the freedom to get up and come and sit with me because we had assigned seats and so there I sat at a table all by myself and so I had a choice to make.

When I was sitting there and of course I felt awkward.

I felt you can just imagine like you know of course I had a basket of 10 roles sound like I was a thousand times. I do not share the roles they make O and desserts are Artie laid out to like but II really chimes myself. Is that okay is that you can sit here and try to fill this emptiness with all the extra roles in desert sand and having a little pity party for yourself or you can decide to see this as a time where the Lord himself wants to be right here beside you and if you are distracted in conversation with nine other people sitting at your table, you wouldn't be so desperate to have a conversation with the Lord. So it's your choice.

You know you can look at this is being set aside, or you can choose to see it is God's opportunity to set you apart. And so it really wasn't about me surviving the banquet.

It was about me developing a mindset lease that there are always going to be moments like this in your life you know and you have to make the choice to understand that God has your best interests in mind, let me ask you this because sometimes I don't mean to step on anybody's toes, but sometimes we can be overly sensitive women that could actually break somebody emotionally.

They you overplay it. In other words, nobody wants to come sit with me. Nobody wants to talk to me you might be a mom in the park on a play day in your bench and there's other moms there, but nobody's approaching you. How does a person rise above the kind of negative self talk and get into a better place work, just relax. It's not about you will first I want to normalize that negative self talk. We all do it is not what it will for me. I don't know, it sounds like in your head in my head.

It sounds like. Of course, you know, of course, you're alone, you're always alone. Of course no one wants to talk to you because you know you you talk too much at the table are your you know this is just the theme of your life. Lisa you know your dad didn't want you that boyfriend in college didn't want use.

So why would it be any different today while that's big stuff.

It is big stuff, but I want to say it. Maybe your dialogue is different but everyone has this everyone has, in the core of who they are.

This feeling of do I really measure.

Do I really have what it takes all of us asked that question I were not typically in day-to-day conversation that vulnerable with one another, but we all have that and so first of all want to say. If you have that negative self talk, don't beat yourself up for having it.

It's normal.

But here's how you overcome it is making the decision that it's not your circumstances that determine whether or not you're worthy. It is the truth of who God says you are and God says you are valuable you are wanted you know before we were even here, just the very thought of us made God explode with extreme joy and say yes. The thought of Jim Daly not feel comfortable action so he found you to be here out of the millions of combinations of all the cells that had to come together to create you.made sure that he formed you very thought of you made his heart explode with joy. And so Dana not to ever spiritualize it but I have to say to myself, instead of looking at this moment is something to feed that negative self talk. I've got a look at this moment is my opportunity to bring the fullness of God into the space that I'm walking in so that night I had a choice I could sit there and say whoa is me. No one wants me, or I could say you know what, there are about 99% of other people here whether they're seated alone or seated at a table that the people who also have the same struggles on the walk into this ramp and on to bring the love of God with me. I'm good at bring acceptance. I'm a look around the room to find somebody who I discern needs and Encouraging Word him and to get my butt up off my chair and walked over to that person. Even if there at a table with 10 people and walked up to Mount again when I was just sitting here and I was looking around the ramp had some extra time to really focus on other people and I noticed you and I just don't know what you're going through right now.

God made sure to send a message from me to you to say she is crazy. I know that so good because when I've done that makes me feel better to just noticing others.

It is the love of God in our heart so often, though, we suppress it with more of our fleshly attitude of being down in the dumps.

Another funny story you had which I totally related to left your briefcase or suitcase outside of the heart, and you started just beating yourself up. I think I had better execs and conversation was over, describe it, so I had been speaking at a conference and it was one where when the car pulled up to take me to the airport. There was lots of chaos.

I was either on my cell phone or is in a conversation with someone. I'm not sure why was distracted by hopped in the car and I assumed that the driver had put my luggage in the back of my car and I shouldn't make that assumption. I should've checked. But I didn't say we get all the way 30 minutes away from the venue where I was, that we pull up I hopped out.

I asked him to pop the back trunk and he says why and I said I gotta get my luggage out and he is like. There's no luggage in the back there at the airport and I have no luggage and so I quickly call someone on my cell phone that was still at the venue.

Can you please send someone over here to get my luggage but I recognize that my timing was very short so there was a great chance I was going to miss my flight. If they didn't really go fast and get my luggage there quickly some staining on the sidewalk outside of the airport and I'm speaking to myself and I'm just saying LOL out loud like Lisa, you're such an idiot. You know, why don't you pay attention you're always doing stuff like this I'm saying all of this and all of a sudden one of the guys who's working at the outside check in counter for an airline. He walks up to me and he puts his hand up and he says absolutely not that it shocked me so much a stranger and stranger is that absolutely not. I said excuse me, he said absolutely not. I will not allow you to talk about yourself in that way, not in my presence while in my presence can't figure what are you an angel and then he said a cuss word and I thought okay is probably not an angel or it would be nothing Angel heart you know it really wasn't the luggage guy at the airport that was saying those words to me. It was really I feel like a message from God himself saying Lisa not in my presence. We talk about yourself. This way you see every day we have a choice. We can bring the fullness of our self, which is insecurities and we can let our insecurities be the first thing that walks into any situation or we can bring the fullness of God, who brings with him. All security he who brings with like if we walk into her room, bringing the fullness of God were freed up to see and love other people and we should. I'm identifying with you because just a couple weeks ago I got all the way through security. I got to my gaze. I realized I left my laptop on a conference room table at a hotel and it's so easy to beat myself up for the word in Scripture.

Are you seeing that God doesn't join me in beating me up for that kind of stupidity or forgetfulness from unit there's there's encouragement in Scripture about for your 13 you're absolutely absolutely well. I think the entirety of God's message to us in Scripture. One of my favorite places to turn that is Psalms where you know we are reassured over and over and over many of the Psalms were written by David who happens to be very featured in my book and invited because if you look at one of the first stories we ever hear about David. It's when his father Jesse was asked by the prophet Samuel to invite all of his sons to come and stand before him, and from his sons from his group of family that Samuel would anoint the next king and Jesse invited in all of his sons except David so when David penned so many of the Psalms he so brutally honest in how he feels about his circumstance but he calls things to mind in one of the biggest things that he calls the mind is not the rejections of his past, but the love of God, who is very very present. So for me a lot of times when I'm feeling those desperate feelings of being rejected are being left out or feeling lonely. I open up the Psalms, especially the ones penned by David and I let the reality of his honesty seat deep into my heart and watch how he turns from feeling rejected the feeling completely left and accepted by God. Lisa misuses that self rejection occurs and you described the adequately the way we beat ourselves up with negative self talk. There's also the rejection from another person, that's real you know the friend that used to be a friend but for some reason they don't return my calls anymore.

Whatever it might be.

How do you counsel person to manage that when it's real it's formidable and there's something that you've done that has pushed somebody away. You don't even know what it is but right well I wrote in the book rejection steals the best of who I am.

By reinforcing the worst that's been said to me, so what often happens is when someone has given you a line of rejection, so they had said to you Jim you're not cool enough to be my friend or a girl in high school may be said to you one time, the famous I like Jim I think you're amazing, you're just not amazing for me Dragon why or whatever you know I mean I once had a guy in high school who I was just crazy about say Lisa, you're a great friend.

I can't ever imagine you really being my girl like the guy I like him and so at the core of all of that is basically someone not saying you're not good enough for me. Okay so that is a line, LIN E that's a statement that they made a line that they spoke into your life.

What happens is that line then eventually in your life if it sinks in. And often those lines of rejection go straight to the core of who we are. It's more than an emotion we feel in the moment it becomes something that goes from a line or statement that they said to a lie. We start to believe about ourselves, then that lie that we believe about ourselves, becomes a liability and every other relationship that were in, including our relationship with God so I imagine. Okay, let's just not pick on you Jim. But let's say that girl said that to you in high school. Okay. And then here we are, how many ever years after high school. You're like 10 years of high school.

Some like that right there 40 years out of high school. I didn't want to say it but you did so here we get so it's been a long time. Right. But somewhere if you let that statement that that girl in high school made seat down into your heart and become the liability of you believing by yourself you're not quite good enough then that feeling of rejection is to be compounded every other time someone says something to you and you don't feel good enough rejection on dealt with rejection will multiply the feeling said that you have a disproportionate response to something that someone said that tapped into that same feeling you're not good enough right and you're talking from experience because you touched on it a moment ago, but mentioned you in a tough relationship with your father described that in the hell that such you on a certain path. Well, my dad had his own issues of brokenness and you know I can look back now and see that, but as a child I didn't understand that had his lack of love for me. I didn't understand as a child have a lot more to do with him a lot less to do with me. Describe the environment so we can catch it. A lot of people will share that environment with you right so one of my earliest memories of my dad's being about eight years old and my mama got me a new dress for Easter. I put it on and it was rare for us to have money to buy store-bought dress that was really special to me. So I put the stress on and I felt so pretty and I thought, I think that tonight is the night that my daddy will actually notice me know I want. Oh, I remember vividly. I walked out into the den.

My dad was sitting in a recliner chair. He had a beer in one hand he had a TV remote in his other hand he was watching something on the TV and I went and stood beside his chair and my heart was just beating so fast like daddy please notice me daddy tell me I'm beautiful daddy tell me that you love me and he never looked my way.

So I did what any little girl would do to try to get attention in that moment I started to twirl around and around and around as my dress was flowing out.

My heart was just crying out daddy please look at me and he never looked at me. He never said anything that night. It didn't matter how many times I twirled around to see he was present physically that he was absent emotionally and to a little girl when a man is physically present but emotionally absent. It creates an deep hollow feeling inside of her heart that creates almost this desperate feeling of got up on someone to tell me that I'm beautiful that I'm noticed and that I'm loved and so for me it set me on this path where I was so desperate to hear those words from a man since I never heard them from my dad that it kind of put me in this place of of grabbing for scraps of love from other people and amen we do if we don't grasp the love of God in that hollow feeling then we will always grab at scraps of love from other people never to destroy and never satisfy Lisa. Can I pressure little bit. Mary looked some people might be thinking it may be temperament.

I'm not even sure but can we really blame it just in our environment or circumstances can you be a little tougher.

I don't want to sound mean-spirited, but some people who may not have that sensitivity don't even understand. And I think for a large part males are less oriented to really grabbing the impact of what happens in childhood those things that you don't get emotionally, spiritually, the love that you don't feel we don't have as much capacity.

I think I've been very generic understand it. I think women feel it far deeper and get it far better than men than men may be why it has such a long impact on a little girl who becomes a woman was looking for the scraps as you describe yeah and I would say that they gift to a woman who feels the pain a little bit deeper is when we feel the pain. We are much more motivated to heal the pain. You see, I think guys feel the pain to it's just that where I don't consider yeah I think that guys can fill it up temporarily with success with performance with surface relationships, but there will come a time in your life for every man, where if you ever hear from your wife.

I really wish you would be more tender with me, and I think a lot of guys hear this from their wife. What they're really, really, but the wife is really saying is I wish you would open up the deep places of your heart to me. I wish you would bring your brokenness and vulnerability. Like if your wife ever says that to you Jim and what she's really saying is Jim. You've got a broken place. Deep down in your heart and I wish you would come to me and say I'm afraid.

I wish you would come to me and say I'm heartbroken over something I wish you come to me and bring those vulva parts your heart because I believe that every person male or female experiences rejection as a little person and wrestles with it the rest of their life. And if we don't allow the deep recesses of our heart to be open to the healing of God then we're gonna create surface relationships that don't ever get to that deep heart center place and every woman longs for her husband to get there Lisa, that is such profound and deep stuff you're talking about and we are at the end of the program and working to continue the conversation but this is touched your heart. Lisa had assured so openly about her own pastoring vulnerabilities and maybe that's triggered something in you and you need someone to talk to. If that's the case, we have Karen Christian counselors who are here.

Sometimes the call volume is high, leave a message and they will get back to you. Don't sit in isolation but there's nothing you're going to share with us that we haven't heard it's rare because we been added for almost 40 years, and these folks know what they're talking about and I hope you will contact us and allow us to put a resource in your hand might be Lisa's book. It may be other resources to but we want you to call us if you're struggling with rejection and loneliness and you feel uninvited in the phone consultation begins with a call to 880 family 800 K and the word family. Lisa obviously want to say thanks for being here today but I'm to give you overnight to think about this question. Starting tomorrow and organist start right here and that is given all the pain. Given the rejection. Why does God allow us to go through this.

What is the purpose so you think about it and will start the program with your answer yet and would encourage you to get the book by Lisa Turk can be yours when you make a donation of any amount to the ministry here of Focus on the Family of the book is called uninvited living loved when you feel less than left out and lonely and it'll help you live out some of the principles that Lisa's been churning today so donate and get your copy of the book Focus on the Family.com/brought on behalf of Jim Daly in the entire team. Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family I'm John Fuller's money back again help you and your family thrive here asking people to define the word appreciate it's like when something goes up in value that's telling someone they did a good job Focus on the Family invite you to give a gift that appreciate when you give a non-cash gift of stocks, bonds or mutual funds. You will avoid capital gains tax deduction and help families thrive for generations to come. Find out more about non-cash gifts. Just visit focus planned giving.com