When You Weren't Invited

Dear friend,

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You weren't invited. You weren't noticed. You weren't chosen.

It's past midnight and you're scrolling through Instagram, seeing the fun photos and exciting captions. And you weren't there. 

Why? You wonder. After all your effort and time spent, they overlooked you. And the lies seep in. You're not funny enough. Not pretty enough. Not fashionable or thin or curvy or good enough. The friends you thought were your best stop responding, stop speaking.

But friend, this is not who you are. I've met Rejection a few times, and he's not a nice guy. He weasels his way in and replaces your expectations with disappointment and pain. He steals joy and brings down weeks.

When this bully walks into your life, there are a few things you must remember:

1. You are accepted.

Darling, there is a love, a friend, who will always accept you. Yes, you've heard it before. He may not seem like enough now, but when you but your hand in His, Jesus will be with you where you go because that's where true love goes. He doesn't give His heart in pieces because he is faithful even when we are not.

|| I took you from the ends of the earth,
    from its farthest corners I called you.
I said, ‘You are my servant’;
    I have chosen you and have not rejected you. - Isaiah 41:9 ||

2. You don't have to be "enough."

No, not everyone will like you. You won't be everyone's best friend. And that's okay. There are and will be people who place unfair, unreal expectations on you and that's stupid. Who you are, who you really are, is who you're made to be. You will never meet everyone's expectation of enough. But you are not in competition with any one else. You are your own kind of enough that no one else is because someone else's enough-ness does not change yours.

3. They weren't trying to hurt you.

Those people who rejected you? They've been rejected too. There's a 99.9% chance they didn't mean to exclude you. They weren't trying to point out your flaws or make you feel bad. From what I know about other people--they're battling the same things as you. Their fight may look different, and you probably can't see it, but it's there. People are just people. It doesn't matter how exciting their Snapchat stories and Instagram posts are.

4. You can rise above it.

Don't let rejection define you. Instead of focusing on the loss, focus on the new. Growth happens in the breaking. I'm not telling you to get revenge or become a passive-aggressive subtweet-er or block them on every social media. I'm telling you that you can move on. Move on from the hurt into a new day. And yes, there will come a time when you hurt again but it's not because something is wrong with you. It's because life hurts sometimes. Don't let yourself get caught in the hurt. Keep living. Keep trusting God.

There isn't an easy answer to rejection. It hurts. But if no one else has told you, and even if they have, let me tell you: you're beautiful. You're lovable. You're unique. You're needed. You're wanted. You will be okay.