Rise.

Here's the thing- I can't change my past or my choices. I can't fix what was broken. I can't redo moments that I wish I could rewrite. I relate all too well to Esau giving away his birthright to his brother Jacob (Genesis 25) because at the moment it felt good. It was like putting a band aid on a wound that needed stitches; a temporary fix that never healed. Making those choices made sense in that context, but neither of us thought about what it would cost us later. 

At some point, I had made so many choices out of instant gratification that I started to believe that was all I was capable of doing. I had created a pattern that wasn't honoring God and it felt like I was buried, so logically I just kept making the same choice. The thought of "what's the point" crossed my mind because I felt like I had made too many bad decisions. All of them led me so far down a path that it was hard to see where I even started. The road back up seemed too hard and daunting and honestly impossible. I reverted to this mode of self-preservation, and I got to a point where it was easier to believe the lies because it was the only thing keeping me from drowning. But what I didn't realize was those same lies were the very thing that were holding me under the water not keeping me above it.

The devil is crafty. He knows how to corner us, and what better way to keep me where he wanted me than by making me stay in the water by manipulating me to believe my head was only above it because of the hill of deceit and disappointment I had created. Logically, I believed that in order to "get out" I should keep adding to it. Building the hill up so my head would never fall underneath the surface. It was easier to believe that I was a colossal screw-up than it was to believe that people could forgive me and look past the trail of damage I had following me. I started to wear my choices like a protective covering because on some messed up level it made me feel safe. It was easier to hide behind shame because then I started to believe that was the kind of person I was rather than fighting to change it. But in doing so I was preventing God from using my story to bring restoration- whether it be just for me or for others by sharing it and getting honest about how I was doing. Staying in the water only punished me by keeping me trapped, and it gave the devil an easy victory that we all know he absolutely does not deserve.

When I finally decided I wanted out of the water I became aware of some things. I had help creating the lies I believed. The things that were said to me, done to me helped to create this idea in my mind for years that I wasn't good enough. I didn't deserve a chance to be better. I wasn't worthy. I believed it was just who I was. But all that time I had a tiny inkling in the back of my mind trying to break its way out- reminding me of God's truths and not the world's. It took me reaching my breaking point in my marriage for that sliver to to burst forth and completely change the trajectory of my life. I finally had had enough. I was tired of being put down. I was tired of living low. I was tired of believing the lies I had allowed to keep me stuck and empty. I wanted something different, so I decided shake myself free from those labels and thoughts. I chose to finally rise above it all.

Fast forward a couple years, and I'm thriving in a new place, in a new job, in a new church with amazing community, and it feels good. Every once in awhile my past pops up like it's always prone to do, but I work through it. I don't allow it to define me because I chose to rise. I would be lying if I said it wasn't hard though. It is like a dark shadow that lingers behind me every day. I have to choose to not let the same lies dictate my actions and beliefs. I have to fight to not travel down the same rabbit holes and force myself to work through my triggers versus ignoring them. Most people who hear my story are empathetic while others struggle to grasp why I stayed for so long. I have to be careful to not allow their questions to fuel any shame I fight against keeping around. I mean even now being on the other side of things I sometimes have a hard time understanding why I stayed for so long because I've finally been out of it long enough that I am able to think clearly. It's hard to not ask myself those same questions because I feel like a completely different person. However, I've heard that being in a toxic situation is like being addicted to a drug, and addictions are hard to break. Knowing this makes me want to not focus on why I stayed, but celebrate the fact that I broke free. 

Healing is a tough business because while valleys are difficult; mountaintops are terrifying. You work so hard to get up that when you reach the top the view is hard to enjoy because you're too scared about falling back down. You cling desperately to the peak which can result in living a life of constant fear. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of taking the wrong step. Fear of never being able to trust yourself again. Fear that you aren't really healed. Fear that someone will never be able to look beyond the dark cloud that hovers. You do all that work to be better, to rise, and you can't even allow yourself the pleasure of looking around and seeing the view from up high. 

The funny thing about a mountaintop though is that at some point you have to come down. A friend reminded me of this over coffee and she made the point that we can either fall backward or fall forwards, but that choice is ours. Getting to a mountaintop doesn't guarantee never being in a valley again, but it can equip us to be prepared for it and that valley doesn't have to seem so impossibly deep. I was listening to a sermon the other day and the pastor said, "He doesn't always pull us out of the situation, but He always enters into the situation with us." This is how we combat those valley moments. This is how we avoid that drowning feeling. Because God is always in those moments with us. Getting knocked down is inevitable. Being pulled into the water is impossible to avoid. Falling off a mountain top is going to happen. Perspective is what drives how we choose to see those situations in our lives. And in those situations we have to choose to rise. 

And the thing is we never have to do it alone. That's a guarantee backed up by scripture. Joshua 1:9 says "This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” He promises to be with us in every single situation no matter its "location." In this life, we will face trials regardless of if we love Jesus or not. The benefit of aligning our lives to His is that when those moments hit we'll be better prepared to handle them not because of who we are, but because of who He is. 

So choose to rise on mountaintops and enjoy the view. Choose to rise in the valley even when you have to lean on Jesus for support to stand. Choose to rise and swim out of the water even if He's having to basically drag you out. Choose to rise regardless because it's better than staying down. Choose to cling to the belief that this world is temporary and place your hope in the peaceful fact that there are far, far better things ahead. I don't know how my story or your story ends, but we can choose to remember all the ways God has been faithful to us and that's enough to sustain us as we move forward and choose to rise. Every time. 

Welcoming Rejection

I used to always anticipate rejection. I used to assume that the people around me would eventually decide I wasn’t someone they wanted around. Because of this assumption, I felt the need to prove myself, and I would attempt to control the outcome by overcompensating in the hopes it would convince them to stay. This only perpetuated some of the statements I’ve been told before like I’m dramatic or over the top. And because of this cycle, I have had to fight off bitterness and resentment in some situations. But I'm tired. I am exhausted living like this, and I know it's a miserable way to live life. I don't want to live in expectation of rejection. I don't want to have to fight and prove my worth to someone. It’s a hostile space and it isn't going to help me be more like Christ or light to others.

In the past when I have been rejected, especially, in the romantic sense, I have allowed those moments to completely steal my self-worth. I allowed myself to find my value in them or rather not see my value because I "lost" it when I was rejected. I gave them too much power over me, and once I started that trend I struggled to stop it. Trust me- I recognize how absolutely wrong that is, but each time I was so wrapped up in being liked and being chosen that when I wasn't it was devastating. After years of this, I have allowed a fear to grow. It's an incredibly silly fear, and I know it's not rooted in truth, but nonetheless, I have it. My fear is that I'll never be chosen. Specifically, in the romantic sense, by a man. I know, it's ridiculous, and I'm shaking my head even as I write this, but if I'm being honest and raw with you it's a thought that often crosses my mind. It’s a battle that I fight daily because I’m scared that my past and the things I have been through are going to be too much. I’m afraid that I am too much. 

I am a work-in-progress people pleaser, so rejection is hard. But let's be real, rejection is hard for anyone. We just handle it in different ways. Some people respond by using it as fuel to keep pushing on while others allow it to burn their light out completely. Unfortunately for me, I've been a member of the latter example too many times. I try to get back up. I try to not be affected, but after so many times of the same thing, you begin to become a little jaded. I mean rightfully so though, right? However, the challenge for myself lately is instead of looking at rejection as something negative and personal- I need to learn to take it as an opportunity to eagerly anticipate what's meant to be for me. I need to choose to turn it into a learning experience that drives me towards the thing or person that God has for me. I know I will continue to face rejection for the rest of my life so I can either let it drown me or fuel me. It only has as much power as I choose to give it. 

I want to learn how to keep that perspective in the forefront of my mind. I don’t want to continue to live with anxiety over this. I want to see all of those rejections as a blessing because each one saved me from less than God’s best. I want to be with the man who knows without a doubt I am the person he wants to be with no matter the hurdles. I want to be with the man who can’t imagine a life without me in it and who makes it clear that me and us are exactly what he wants.  And while I am waiting for that man and part of my story to develop, I want to spend less time focusing on who that man is and more time focusing on all the people who do choose me and continue to show up for me. Because how ungrateful is it to continue to allow all of my past experiences to taint any future ones and more importantly the healthy relationships I currently have. It's not fair to the people in my life that are totally in my corner, loving me for me to just assume that one day they're going to leave and decide I'm not worth their time anymore. It's not fair to put that label on them just because others have done it to me before. And yet here I am doing exactly that- living in the fear that one day they will realize they no longer need or want me around. I hate how depressing that sounds, and I hate that my brain can so easily default to these thoughts when I am fighting so hard to fix all of the crossed wires. Truthfully, it would be so much easier to just sweep all these feelings under the metaphorical rug and keep moving forward in life without giving them a second thought. Sometimes I really would love to do just that. However, my rug is becoming a tiny mountain, so I've been working on sorting through them and smoothing the rug back out.

I recently finished reading Kait Wartman's book, Thank You for Rejecting Me, and it was such an easy and powerful read. It reiterated my need to change my perspective and mindset on the things that have been said and done to me by others and by myself. It reaffirmed that I give way too much control and power to others expecting them to fill the voids in my life. That's why it's so difficult when people leave because I was letting them complete me rather than learning how to be whole on my own with Christ. It sucks to admit that because I don't want to seem like a weak person or someone who can't be alone, but I would say it's probably fair to assume I am not the only one who has created this pattern for themselves. I have always said that my goal in being open and honest with people is to provide space for someone to feel seen and heard through my words. I hope that's happening now and if it's you I hope you hear me loud and clear when I say that the only one who can satisfy you is Jesus. It might sound cheesy and you might roll your eyes as you read that sentence, but it is the truest statement I could write. Nothing in my life that has been worth remembering has happened without Him. 

I started this post 9 months ago right after I went to something called Chazown at my Life.Church campus. The point of the class is to use your core values, spiritual gifts, and past experiences to form your Chazown (vision) statement for your life. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from it, but the whole experience was eye-opening for me. It helped me to see that a majority of the painful memories in my life are rooted in some form of rejection. So no wonder I struggle with it. I didn’t want to keep giving control to this fear, and my way of standing up to it is to write and tell my story. Thus my statement ended up being: To share my story to help others see their worth in Christ. 

That experience led me to write the initial draft of this post, but from the start, it sounded so negative. I didn’t feel like the message I wanted to convey was properly being put into words, so I would open it every couple of months, read through it again and again, and then add new thoughts to it. I wanted to be honest with my feelings and vulnerable with this struggle, however, I didn’t want it to be a discouraging post. As I’m currently adding thoughts and editing, I’m realizing that I’ve finally had a mindset shift. I no longer dread rejection or want to hide from it. That’s not to say that I seek it out or run head-on into it, but I know that it’s bound to happen, and there is so much good that can come from it. It can make me stronger and more resilient. Besides, why do I want people in my life that don’t want to be around anyway? 

And as I reflect back on my life so far, after the times where I felt the most rejected- there were and continue to be some of the most incredibly positive, significant moments that formed because of the negative ones. To me, that is proof of God's goodness and how He used the difficult parts of my story to bring about something greater beyond what I could comprehend in my moments of rejection and pain. 

Not everyone in this life is going to like me. I don't like frustrating or disappointing people, but I'm learning that it's going to happen and it's okay. If I'm living my life the way God intended, then it's going to be inevitable. John 15:18 says, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.” And what an example Jesus is for us. So I can either continue to let other people define how I live my life or I can grow my backbone and be confident in the person I am becoming.