Trade your pain for joy
Have you felt rejected
If so, you know rejection is very hurtful; it causes you to feel unloved and unwanted. There is no security. It eats up all your self-esteem. I felt that from birth until a few years ago.
If I had known I could overcome my rejection and feel the peace and joy that are now mine, I would have taken action sooner. I was born into a middle-class home in the late forties. My alcoholic parents raised me, but my mother openly rejected me.
I became angry and bitter as I grew
Mother’s reason she didn’t want to have anything to do with me when I was born was a big lie, one I had to live with for many years.
It was that I was too ugly to name. Too ugly to love. Too ugly to nurse as she had the child before me and the one who was born after me. She asked a nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta to name me. Then, she had others to care for me when I came home from the hospital.
My brother, only twenty-eight months older than me, tried to make me pretty so she could love me. He took my mother’s nail polish, climbed into my crib, and painted my fingers and toes. When someone caught him in the act, he said, “Make baby pretty, mama, make baby pretty.” He would not have known whether I was an ugly baby; he was going by what he heard her say.
I tried to end my life at eleven and again before I turned thirteen
I was beaten nearly every day if my daddy wasn’t around. The names I was called ran continuously in my brain for years.
She tried to beat me with a wire coat hanger when I was eighteen. That was the first and only time I raised a hand against her. I slapped her; it must have startled her because she stopped.
In my teen years, looking for love, I found myself pregnant and unwed. Praying for the child to go to a good home became my daily focus. He was born in 1968 and went to a great family.
Then, I married and had two sons. I should have been happy, but bitterness was destroying me emotionally and physically. In my mid-twenties, I was introduced to the Holy Spirit.
First, the Holy Spirit healed me physically. I had pain that developed when I had an IUD placed after the birth of my third son. He was then nearly two.
Then, He, the Holy Spirit, began to walk me through my emotional healing
Along the way, I learned two of the biggest lessons:
- Forgiveness is the key to moving forward. Because it unlocks the knots of anger and bitterness that hold you back.
- Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes changes your perspective.
That second lesson is from an old Native American saying, “Walk a Mile in Someone’s Moccasins.” It means to know what others are going through. It develops empathy because it causes you to share perspectives with others.
Here is how I ended my pain of rejection
With the Holy Spirit’s urging, I took what I knew of my mother’s life during the time frame in which I was conceived and born. Then, I wrote it all down. Next, I added her age when all these things took place. Note: My Mother passed away in 1982, so I didn’t have her so I could ask questions. So, I relied on what I had been told over the years.
I thought about what she must have been going through at her age. Then, I Put myself in her place as she delivered me and her pronouncement to put distance between us.
That’s when my perception changed
It was easy to forgive her because now I had walked in her shoes. This simple method helped me overcome my lifelong rejection.
So, if you have been rejected and wish to find security, peace, and joy, try walking in that person’s shoes.
I prayerfully suggest you do the following:
- Write down all you know about why you were rejected. Honesty is needed here.
- Think long and hard about the person’s life, age, and background.
- Set it all aside for a couple of days.
- Continue to pray for complete understanding.
- Now, it’s time to walk in that person’s shoes. Imagine yourself as the other person. You are at their age, background, and the events happening then. Could you make the decision they made?
Note: My perspective may be colored because I made a hard choice to give up a child for adoption.
Here is what I knew about my rejection
At twenty-four years old, my mother had a toddler and a husband away fighting WWII.
Longing for more, she probably accepted an invitation she should not have. After all, she had been a beauty queen and was quite pretty. She had an affair and became pregnant, which led to a back-alley abortion.
Daddy came home from the war, and I was conceived. I think Mother tried to talk Daddy into giving me up for adoption. I believe this because of something her cousin said when I was a teenager.
How do I know this much? One day, she told me she was going to hell for killing a baby, and she told me about the affair and abortion. She said she could see that baby crying out from heaven. Mother said she told Daddy the night I was born about the affair. I believe it was because she was trying to get him to consent to giving me up. He went and got drunk.
Any child born to her after that abortion was bound to be rejected. She probably felt guilty when I moved within her womb. I was her guilt and shame. I didn’t put myself in her womb. God did. I am not going to tell Him He made a mistake. Actually, I did that as a child. She came up with the lamest excuse: I was too ugly! She had sisters and sisters-in-law to take care of me as much as possible. Daddy tried to convince himself I was his all the years I had with him.
This is how I walked a mile in my mother’s shoes, overcame my rejection, and forgave her. Now, Peace and Joy are mine to the full.
I pray that every person who does this exercise will experience peace—the peace that passes all understanding—and be flooded with joy that they can not help but share.
