The Sting of Old Rejection

I was standing in the hall beside the stage in El Dorado, Arkansas last weekend, waiting for Smitty to finish his meet-and-greet before heading to start the show, when I heard my name called.

After spending 4 years at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas (it’s a mouthful to say, isn’t it?), I figured someone from my alma mater would be there. After exchanging pleasantries, I caught up for a few minutes with the fellow OBU Tiger making small talk, finding out his wife was in the audience and that she and I knew each other back in the day. Since college had been over a decade ago, her name didn’t instantly ring a bell.

“What social club was she in,” I asked, trying to place her. (The school was so small, we didn’t have national frats and sororities). He replied, “Oh, she was an ‘E.’”

EEE. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I never knew three little letters could cause so much pain. In fact, when he said it, I could feel the little jab to the gut where anger and bitterness wanted to raise up and just hit something. (Preferably an ‘E’).

My freshman year in college was my chance to start over. I had been a party girl in high school and was cleaning up my ways after a life-changing encounter with God my senior year. On top of that, I had always been in the popular crowd, but always on the outskirts of the popular crowd. College was my chance to be all the way in—once and for all.

When it came time to pledge social clubs, I didn’t really take into account which club would fit me and my personality. All I cared about was which club was the best (meaning, which club was the most popular on campus). Well, ‘best’ in Arkansas was a little different than what might be best for a free-spirit artsy chick who loved to buy her clothes at vintage shops. I didn’t wear matching sweater-vest ensembles from Banana Republic, I didn’t own a string of pearls or wear high heels to class. I didn’t want to marry right out of college to a guy who played golf, and I didn’t want to be a teacher, soccer mom and someday drive a mini-van. I wasn’t preppy, nor had I ever been, but suddenly, that didn’t matter. I had to be the best, with the best, and around the best. So if the best at my school wore sweater vests, pearls, heels, got married to boys with polo shirts and clean-cut hairdos, were Southern Baptists living in preppy-land, then by golly, that’s what I was going to become.

I cut my hair like the popular Jennifer Aniston layered look and began dressing like a Chico’s/Harold’s ad. I got in good with any ‘E’ I could, letting them know I would most definitely be pledging their preppy, popular social club. I longed to be accepted so badly, that I changed everything about myself to fit their mold—even though their mold didn’t fit me at all.

During rush week, if you were certain you wanted to pledge ‘E’, tradition had it you would come to the last party and perform a little song and dance. Well, not only did I dance and sing (like an idiot), I was the ring-leader who organized our freshman group of potential E’s, wrote the song, choreographed the dance, being absolutely confident (after having it on good authority from a few sophomore E’s) that I was a shoe-in.

A shoe-in, I thought. I’m finally going to be locked into the most popular crowd—bonded by sisterhood. Forever. (Deep, ridiculous sigh.)

Bid morning came. The dorm was electric with expectation as we all waited silently in our rooms for that coveted envelope to slide under the door with a bid. I had already picked out my red ‘E’ outfit, supremely confident after my little song and dance, my inside scoop, and my newly preppy exterior that I had it in the bag. Why wouldn’t I? I had played the part to a ‘T.’

The poor, unfortunate girls, however, who didn’t make the cut got knocks on their doors at 10:00 am, letting them know they wouldn’t be joining the rest of their dorm in celebrations, squeals, screams, and sisterhood. I was completely relaxed, certain that would never be me, but I still listened silently against my door like the rest of the hall, straining to hear who might be loser enough to get the dreaded knock.

10:00 came, with a chilling, unexpected, earth-shattering, unforgettable sound.

I had been cut. The ‘E’s’ didn’t want me. And a piece of my heart died that day when the knife of rejection plunged deep.

So tonight, when I found out an ‘E’ was in the audience, I’m not even gonna lie. The thought ran through my head, “I’ll show YOU how wrong you were for cutting me,” making a few imaginary Rocky jabs into the air.

WHERE IN THE WORLD DID THAT COME FROM, CHRISTA? It had been over a decade since that fated morning! I had fought to forgive them many times, prayed for grace as I passed them every day for 4 years on campus, and for crying out loud, I’m an adult now! How in heavens name could the mention of a stupid club called EEE send my heart back to the painful emotions of a rejected freshman?

Remember when Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times do I forgive my brother and sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” And Jesus replied, “I tell you, not seven times. But seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18:21-22) (Oh, and I’m not saying that the E’s ‘sinned against me’ for cutting me. I’m talking more about learning how to not walk in the spirit of offense.)

Seventy times seven, huh? That’s 490 times. And I can promise you, I’m not anywhere near that number. Guess I still have some layers of forgiving under there that I didn’t know about, but I’m glad they’ve risen to the surface, even after all these years. I never want bitterness or unforgiveness lurking around deep in the corridors of my soul, poisoning and polluting my heart.

Refusing to forgive, holding onto anger and bitterness, and remaining hurt only do one thing—poison the one carrying them around. In fact, refusing to forgive someone is like drinking poison and then waiting for the one you hate to die. It’s just not going to happen.

You’re the one carrying around the death sentence.

And while forgiveness sometimes feels impossible, it is always a choice. Always. It’s not a feeling, it’s a choice. We want to wait until we feel like forgiving, but that hardly ever happens, especially when pride and pain are involved. Sometimes, the person or group that’s wronged you might be light years away from deserving your gift of forgiveness, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a choice. Seventy times seven times over.

Have I had to forgive the E’s repeatedly? Yes. Every time those feelings of rejection, bitterness, anger, and betrayal begin to bubble up, guess what I get to do…seventy times seven times. I take my will and I CHOOSE to forgive them, again and again and again—as long as it takes.

Some day I’m absolutely confident that when I think about the E’s, I won’t feel like throwing up or wanting to punch something. I won’t feel the sting of rejection or the pain of their refusal. But until those feelings come naturally, I have a choice to make. Every time.

YOUR TURN:

Is there anyone that you’re refusing to forgive? Do you think that holding onto your hatred and anger for them somehow makes them pay for what they’ve done? Are they really the ones suffering from your unforgiveness, or are you?

Make a list.

The first time I made my list of people I needed to forgive, it was pages long. There were all the boys who used to make fun of me and there was the teacher who had embarrassed me in front of the class. There were family members, old friends, and enemies.

Take your will, and get it ready. For a lot of these, you’re NOT going to feel warm, gushy feelings of forgiveness and grace, especially if you’ve been carrying the anger around for years, or maybe even a lifetime. But it’s time to let yourself off the hook—it’s time to let yourself loosen your grip. You’re the one suffering from your sentence—not them.

Go through the list, one by one, and CHOOSE to forgive.

“I choose to forgive _____________ for _________________. They may not deserve my pardon or my grace, but I refuse to carry around the poison of anger, bitterness and unforgiveness any more. I let them go, as many times as it takes.”

We want forgiveness to be a one-time, ‘stick our hearts in the microwave and they come out zapped’, kind of a thing, but I’m here to tell you (especially when the wound goes extremely deep), it can definitely be more of a process. Give yourself grace for this process—or even for considering the idea of forgiveness.

Some of you have been raped, abused, beaten, cursed, broken, cheated, and had more tragedy happen to you than words can describe. But you can’t change the past. The only thing you can change is the condition of your future—and forgiveness is the only way to get to freedom. It’s the only way to allow something good to come from the bad—from healing to come from the pain.

You can’t ever fully heal without forgiveness. It’s not easy, in fact, it could be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done, but you deserve to be healed and whole.

Make the first step in forgiving the ones who have hurt you the most. Begin to feel the freedom of dumping that heavy load. It was never yours to carry anyway. (:

Xx, Sista Christa

(PS. I found out later, a nasty rumor had circulated about me that wasn’t remotely true that last night the E’s were voting on their new pledge class—thus, the cut. But my second bid choice, the Chi Delta’s, were gracious enough to pick me up and accept me as if I had chosen them first. They loved me unconditionally and powerfully for the 4 years I was in college. I became pledge class president and actually realized during pledge week, that these girls and their free spirits were actually where I belonged, and finally felt comfortable being accepted for who I actually was—and not what I could become. What I thought had been rejection had actually been protection. God knew exactly where I was supposed to be. If I had gotten into the E’s, I know I would have become a completely different person (that I probably wouldn’t have liked) and never become the woman I am now, doing what I do.

So all that to say, it all worked out the way it should have. It always does).