It feels like the little sting you get pulling a big prickly weed out of the garden with dollar-store gloves.
Other times it comes as a deep-down pang. Your heart dropping three stories in a freefall that lands somewhere in your gut.
It’s buried deep.
It rises fast.
Trying to take you down.
“Sorry, your project isn’t what we are looking for.”
“We’ve decided you’re not qualified.”
“I don’t care about you anymore.”
“There’s no place for you here.”
“I guess you didn’t get invited.”
Rejection.
Smack-dab slapping us in the face, with all our insecurities and self-doubt.
Rejection has been following me around all my life. Waiting and watching for that chance to take me out. It knows my weak places, it knows where I am insecure and what makes my heart hurt. I’m conscious of its attempts on my life and if I’m not careful, it goes after who I am.
Stealth Attacker
Trying to paralyze me with lies: You’re not good enough. Your dreams are ridiculous. You are unlovable. You have no value.
Rejection can become the seed in your heart that starts small but soon has you so tangled in a mess of prickly weeds that you can’t move forward. Those weeds trying to take root? You gotta yank those babies out. Weeds cut out the good things that try to grow, strangling the beauty until you can’t see it anymore.
Almost every week, I come face-to-face with some type of rejection. Don’t we all? It comes in varying sizes and shapes, different circumstances and situations.
But, I am done with it. I’ve come to the conclusion, I’ve made a decision. I’m being proactive.
When rejection slaps me in the face, I’m going to slap it back.
When the seeds try to grow, I won’t let them take root.
When I’m told that my writing isn’t good enough, I’m going to submit even more.
When I feel on the outside looking in, I’m going to love instead of resent.
When I feel uninvited, I’m going to reach out.
I won’t let my heart get tangled in the weeds.
A tangled heart can’t beat.
It gets suffocated with self-doubt that tries to take out all its light.
No more.
I’m over it.
I belong to my Beloved.
He is mine.
He has a banner over me that is love.
Not a little flag, or a small sign that whispers quietly.
A banner. Of love.
It shouts and sways and declares over my life.
Greater than any seed of rejection trying to take root.
When you feel rejected, look to the places where you are most accepted. Those are your havens. When you doubt who you have been created to be, know there is a plan and purpose for your life that is greater than any hurt down deep. When you heart is broken and crushed into a million little pieces, have hope. Don’t let any weed seeds grow, no matter how hard as they try to take root.
Make a choice
Yank them out.
You’ll get through the prickles.
Work through the pangs.
Look up to your banner.
Waving over you.
Shouting.
It’s love. {eoa}
Shelly Calcagno is a Toronto-based author, blogger and speaker. Shelly is also co-host of 100 Huntley Street TV show. {eoa}
Janet Perez Eckles 
Shawn Akers 
Abby Trivett