Rejection

I don't believe that there is a worse feeling than being rejected. Well maybe there is, but for me it is the worst feeling. I am not talking about the kind of rejection for not getting into a program or a job or anything like that, those things are usually only surface deep rejections. They depend only on your skill set, experience or style, all of which are easy to change. The rejection I am talking about is the rejection of you, in relationships.

Its the rejection that happens when you lose friends, or a romantic intrest, or a partner of some kind. The kind that looks at you, sees you, knows you and then decides you are not worthy. Its the kind where you are judged for your character, personality and everything you are, it is taking that and saying you aren't that special, you are not worth hanging around anymore. This is the kind of rejection I am talking about, the kind that cuts to your soul and leaves it bleeding for a while. Its the pain of having been found unworthy to someone that you care deeply about and knowing that they actually don't like you, because you are you. I can't think of anything worse than that, because we all want to be loved and accepted, but when we are not, that cuts deep to places that cause permanent damage.

Its sad really. We all want to be loved and accepted, but we are unwilling to love and accept others. A lot of pain and social problems people have is due to being rejected and the damage that has caused. It is interesting that we try to find a way out of being rejected or justifying the rejection. We either build us up to be greater than we are, or we tear down the other person to make them smaller. Either way as long as your self esteem is in tact that is all that matters.

I don't believe in that, because that is only helping the cycle. It is a way of rejecting someone for rejecting you. That does nothing. You learn nothing from that, but to build up walls and self defense so that you can't be hurt again. Yet that is the challenge is it not. To give of yourself, to give all of yourself and all of who you are in everyday without being dishonest and without doing it to gain something.

I have done that twice in my life. Both times ended in disaster and in great pain. Both have caused damage that I can only pray will get healed one day. It only feeds my desire to close off to build up walls to hate people and their ways, to distance myself and to be alone forever. If I do that I will be safe, I will be safe and no pain will ever come to me again and I will not get hurt. However I will be the most bitter miserable person on the face of the earth if I do that. So I can't. As much as I desire to as much as the pain hurts and how easy it could be, I can't. I can't because of one true fact that remains true for the completeness of time. God hasn't done that to me.

I think of myself being rejected when I was completely myself and completely who I could be and then found unwanted. It makes me question myself and the kind of person I am and what I lack and how i could be better, because if I was better this would have never happened. If I was more this or that, if I fit into what they wanted more then maybe I wouldn't get hurt maybe I wouldn't be here where I am at. Maybe.... The pain it hurst so much and it is deeper than anything I have felt before, so I need an explanation and I need a reason and that reason must be me. Right?

However I look at my relationship with God. The God that is. How good has he been to me and how many times has his goodness wanted to be showered on me, but I have rejected it. I have rejected it, trusting not in his goodness, trusting not that he cares or loves me, but in what I think. After all I know me, so how could I not know what is best.

I don't reject God because he is not good and amazing, I reject God because of other reasons. I think about God being where I am at and if God feels pain, it must really hurt him when I do reject him. How many times has he been where I am at... more than I can think of. Yet God still gives of himself and still continues to be who he is: good. This is why I can't build up my walls and distance myself from people, because God shows this to me and when I dwell upon it, my heart only wants to do that with others.

Yes there is pain in life and yes there is suffering and a lot of injustice, but with all that we can't stop being ourselves we can't stop giving every time we are hurt. If we do that, we let the suffering and the pain win, we let injustice rule. We must keep giving through the pain and through the crap, just like God has done for us.

For me I will never understand why I was rejected. To me it just does not make any sense. I feel the pain and I feel it deeply and will feel it for a while. But I won't stop giving of myself and being who I am, just because one person has rejected it.

Settled

I am starting to feel

Settled

Just a little.

I like this feeling.

Everyday that I am here, I enjoy it more and more. It's not because I am adjusting well or that I am awesome, even though both are true. I think it is I am seeing GOd in a better light and asking myself once again to look at God and view Him as he is, not as I want him to be. To look and see my situation, not as I want to see it or try to construct it in how I think it would be ideal, but in what God is doing in and through it. To see him work and to see him move.

I have been recently convicted of my excessive talk. Not all the stupid stuff that comes out of my mouth or the swearing, but the excessive talk about God and life. All the philosophizing that I do, that is just rubbish. Maybe I should think less and that will help me speak less. However God convicted me. I am done talking about God and Christianity as a lifestyle. I want to live it and experience it. I want God to move and have power in my life. I want to see crazy shit that GOd does. Just crazy.

There is that heart head disconnect and I would rather have heart than head now.

Failed

I have failed. I failed my first class ever in the history of my existence. I have never failed in life before. I seriously have always been good at school, but now I am no longer good at it apparently, cause I had to withdraw from my Calculus class. That is right after two years between my last calculus class my grade went from a B on a linear path to D. Some might say there is hope and I could raise it. However after two test the grade is a D, and that is out of 3 total test for the whole course, which means that more than half of the points are in and there is no way that I could make it a C or better. I think I will have better luck next semester. If not well I don't know what I will do with my life, but I know God has it figured out. Thank Jesus for summer school as well, cause then I wouldn't be out of this school thing for a while.

It is funny I really wanted to go back to school and was really excited to do it, but I am finding that my straight A record is being demolished and I have become stupid. I don't know if I would say that, but I feel really dumb. But even if I am dumb I know that this is where I meant to be and where God wants me to be.

Yet in all this I would say that I am learning to give grace to myself and not be so hard and be so perfectionistic. After all Reverse Culture shock, Lifestyle change and shitty roommate situation, being two years away from school and forgetting everything.... I think it is fair to say that I am doing alright. I know C's and B's aren't my average and what I usually do, but under these circumstances I am happy that I am passing at all. I need to have grace, cause God has grace on me and I need to have grace for me. I know that I am my own toughest critic, but I need to stop. I need to live in grace.

Though at times like these I sit and wonder if this is really what God wants me to do. If I am indeed meant to pursue a career as a Chemical Engineer. I have to say that I risked a lot coming here and I risked so much to make sure that I could finish this. I am finding out that life is not that easy and it takes a ton of work. It just sucks cause I feel like i am getting my groove on again with studying and being in school, but it is a little to late. Oh well.

Depression

I am in one of the worst spots in my life and I don't know why. I shouldn't be I should be happy and pleased with what God has done and what he has given me, but in the end I am not. No matter what I do or say nothing seems to get better for me nothing seems to improve and life just keeps shitting on me. I have no control and I do not control anything, but am subject to whatever happens.

My life so far is living in a place I can't call home or actually be myself or express myself. Where my roommates talk to their friends about how big of a 23 year old loser I am, who is creepy and keeps to himself. I aparently am hated by them. There is always tension and always something that is akward between us. I cna't even hold a conversation with them. I am more like a stanger in their house and I don't ever feel like I am at home. I spend more time at school so I don't have to spend time here. I can't use the living room and the kitchen with out some comment or some weird look. I don't have a home and I can't be myself here. I can't. I get accused of things and yelled at for things that are not my fault since the day I got here. I can't handle coming to a place that is not safe and is a home. I can't take living in a hotel for a year or even half a year. I can't take it. I just can't.

The first week i got here I have been praying that God would provide me with a new place that by October I would know what was going to happen and that by December i would move out. Well it is the end of October and nothing has happened. God has not moved and looks like he won't move. Does he not see? Can he not hear my prayers? I know that "everything will work out", but when does life never work out. When? It always does, there is always some resolution. Yet I see God not moving and I see him not doing anything. He isn't speaking, he isn't moving and the situation I am in and the lack of his action makes me grow to hate him a little. I know that it is wrong to hate him and everyone will feel as if I am the one at fault and maybe I am, but how does that excuse God from not doing something and not speaking? I don't think it does.

Which gets me to the main point. I am here alone, out of place, depressed and angry. I hate where I am at. I have tried and am trying to fit and to make this work. I believe this is where God has called me for this time, but I am beginning to believe this less and less. I am alone and I feel so out of place. It is really hard for me to describe and it is hard for me to pin point specifics. I just don't get some people and I don't understand somethings that they do. It is like my friend said...I have outgrown my culture. I have, but what does that mean? What do I do then? I am alone I can't connect and i want to connect and I want to have good friends, but I just can't seem to conect with anyone or do anything right.

Feeling out of place and not connecting has made me feel really alone. I feel like i have to change in order for people to like me and in order to fit in and I can't fully express myself. Plus having a home in where I am unable to express myself just adds to the loneliness and me depressed.

On top of all this I am not good at school anymore. I have outgrown it too, maybe. I suck at it. I don't even know if I will pass my classes. I am failing at that. There is just all these things that add up and I am failing at all of them. People tell me to look to Christ and God, but how can I when God hasn't done anything while i have been here?

Where is his comfort? Where is his hand moving? Where are his words? Where is his love? I know God loves me, but the lack of movement is killing my belief in it. Really God loves me so much that he will just let me be stuck here? He loves me so much that he can do anything, but isn't because he love me so much? How am I suppose to view my situation how am I suppose to see it.

Positive they say positive. Well give me a couple of positive things about this situation. Oh wiat there really aren't any. There is little positive when it is compared to what is actually happening. How am I suppose to cling to the positive.

The bottom line for me is if God isn't going to move then I will. I don't care i don't want to be here and even if he has called me here, then I am not staying with these conditions. I am not staying here. I don't care if that is disobedience. If i can end my pain and sorrow and be free from it, why should I not do it? Why should I sit in it and try to make up a reason or pretend that God has a reason that I am here. If God's reason for me being here is for me to hate him...Well he sure is winning and knows what he is doing.

God says he will never leave us or forsake us, but I am pretty sure that he keeps us at arms length.

My problem is with God and him not doing anything. Him not listening and him not comforting. I try to find hope, but how can I find hope in a God who hasn't shown that he cares and that there is a reason to hope. What should my hope be in and what should my hope be for?

I hate my situation I really really hate it. God apparently doesn't care and I am here alone with no one and nothing.

Groups

The other night I hung out with some new people. Most of them were from Texas and they moved here in July to help out with the church I am a member of now, to learn about church planting and see if they want to plant one. It was awkward and uncomfortable, partly because I didn't really know anyone and the people I went with I barely knew. It was interesting to observe though. This is what I saw and experienced. Not just with this group, but also other groups.

1) Groups that are formed are hard to break into unless you know one or two of the people well, or if the group is small enough to allow for one to one conversations.

2) Groups have inside jokes, gags and things they all can relate too, not being able to relate to them makes it impossible to become a part of the group. (For this group they all worked at the same place and had inside jokes about it...I could not relate)

3) Without relating to them it is hard and almost impossible to share in and be a part of the conversation...which results in people thinking you are not enjoying yourself or are bored.

4) Groups are not very inviting to new people. They don't exhert a lot of effort to let them join in or in getting to know them.

5) There is always a funny guy in the group who draws attention to himself, which creates an atmosphere that doesn't allow too many other conversations outside of him...I could be wrong about this and maybe sometimes I am this guy.

I find this interesting. Groups don't like to add new people and it takes a while for the new person to be added and apart of the group. Yet as Christians I believe it is the most important part, whether they are fellow believers or non-believers I believe that this is one of the biggest parts of being a Christian to including people and strangers into belonging and being a part of a group and inviting them in. Without this it just seems like another clique or club in which you have to be a certain way in order to join. This is love and this is a part of what loving others is all about inviting them in and knowing them and accepting them for where they are at and who they really are through God's eyes.

Reminds me of the verse in John after Jesus is washing his disciples feet and he says that this is how they will know you are my disciples by how you love one another. I want to learn to love others and to love them well

Am I from another planet?

(This is a jumbled processing blog post)


Learning to be a Christian in America is hard. It is like...another world. I think the hardest part about it, is that it is a cultural thing in America. It would be just as hard to be a Muslim in a Muslim country. How can you be a good true Muslim when all your laws pretty much make you be a Muslim? Or all the Social expectations and norms force you to be one as well?

How am I suppose to live in the States as a Christian? I feel though as if there is a complication to it as well, since there is a generation, my generation, that has grown up in the church and is now trying to redefine what it means and looks like. There is this subtle rebellion against things of old and striving for this "back to community and basics" idea. Much like trying to live like they lived in the 1st century. What i have seen in this is a slight revolt for things of Definitions and structures.

What I have seen is everyone wanting things to be "Organic". Though I am not sure what they mean by that. I am assuming it is a sense of things happening on a more day to day basses and there is not this 'going out of the way' to have something happen. I believe that is what it means. Though I don't know if I agree with it, but maybe I do to an extent. The reason is that i believe that we have to 'go out of the way' to make things organic. How else to you build relationships and know people, unless you make time in your schedule, that meeting and that conversation just won't happen. It takes me going out of the way to an extend, but does that not make it organic? I don't know. Even conversations aren't really organic, you have to go out of the way a bit to ask those tough questions and to get to the heart of people, to see what is going on. That is how I see it at least. Than agian I could be wrong and I turely just want understanding.

To be a bit honest I find it sad that there is this sense that we have to redefine things and make things our own in this generation. I think there is a lot of good from it, in terms of community and in terms of wanting to follow Jesus with a true authentic faith. Yet I don't like sometimes how it is done and how some things there is a heavy stance against it, like structure and wanting to do things. The actions of doing something constantly is not legalism, but putting those things above Christ and replacing him with them is legalism. More of a heart problem than an action problem. In reality I believe we are all legalists to an extent, just because we might not have rules in a traditional sense doesn't mean that we don't have any. Like if everything is to be organic, but I think things should be more structured, then the legalism is saying that, that is wrong and it can only be organic. In either case the point isn't the things within themselves, but having those things point us toward Christ. Having one way won't work, or does it? There is only one way to God....Jesus Christ, so maybe there is only one way to do things, but then again God doesn't seem to do the same thing in the same way all the time. Not everyone is called to him in the same way. (Sorry for the tangent)

I just don't believe that things being more organic or more structured is key, but in the situation you find yourself the question should be, which one will lead me the closest to Christ?

I also need to think more about this lack of definition thing as well as there is a lot of assumption within the definition. Sometimes i don't know what you mean, but you assume that I do.