Let’s get something clear, dating is indeed “discriminatory”. We are choosing and being chosen. No matter what the reason, not getting what we want can be a negative experience. Those negative feelings are made much worse by false assumptions about rejection. If those false assumptions are corrected, then the majority of negative feelings can be avoided.

When rejecting behavior occurs, individuals sometimes are led to believe and think, “I just got rejected. They didn’t like me.” Compounded with harsh rejecting behavior from others, these self-thoughts may even include “I am a no-good, worthless person, etc.”. The result is a very negative experience and perhaps a lasting poor self-image.

To help protect yourself against such negative and undeserved feelings, it can be helpful to counter the unfair cognitive distortions. To do so, keep the following in mind:

1) Each instance (approach, date request, etc.) is unique and different. Whether one or several people have demonstrated rejecting behaviors towards your request, you cannot logically generalize to “everyone” or “always”. Each time, place, and person is distinctive. What is true for one is not true for all. The next person could be different. So, try not to overgeneralize. Stay hopeful. Keep an open mind.

2) Rejection is not your fault. Try not to personalize and take the blame. There are many reasons why someone can be disinterested and very few of them relate to you at all. This is even MORE true, in instances where the other person is needlessly abusive or shaming. That is clearly their issues, which they are trying to push onto you, and you are not responsible for causing. However, do stay open to civil explanations and respectful feedback.

3) Rejection says nothing about you as a person. This is where the phrase “I got rejected” is particularly troubling. “You” did not get rejected. The person saying no doesn’t even know the essential “you”. How could they reject it? You have not downloaded your personal life history into them. So, try not to label yourself based on one superficial interaction (or many). Be vigilant to not give anyone who doesn’t really know you that much influence over your self-image. Certainly a 30 second chat, or even several dates, doesn’t qualify someone as an expert on “you” to judge you.

Give without needing to be thanked. As human beings we are programmed to view our actions as a transaction. I do this for you; You pay me. I do this for you; You thank me. If your actions go unnoticed or unrewarded they must have been futile or a waste of time…right?

- I didn’t hear “thank you”…or why were they thanked and I wasn’t -

I have come to a place in my life where I give freely without any concern for praise or thanks. If I have the means to meet a need, I do not even give it a second thought. The time, talent, money that I have to give is not mine by any means. It’s all attributed to my Father. I am childish and selfish when feeling frustrated over not being thanked for things that are not even my own!

The servant is not even thanked, because he is merely doing what he is supposed to do. In the same way, when you obey me you should say, ‘We are not worthy of praise. We are servants who have simply done our duty’” (Luke 17:10).

I’m tired of hearing my christian brothers and sisters calling themselves “wretched sinners”. You aren’t.

Part of our completeness in Christ is that there is no condemnation from God. When God looks at you He sees a righteous, sanctified, redeemed son/daughter – because you are complete in Christ! We show forth this completeness in our day-by-day living when we are thinking the Word, feeling the Word, breathing the Word and acting on the Word. When we believe God we live what He has made us to be in Christ. There never, ever, ever is any condemnation from God toward you! Surely you should not condemn yourself! We are to see ourselves as our Heavenly Father sees us.

God says you are righteous! Is it because of your good works? No. It is by the complete and perfect work of Christ.When it comes to salvation; men’s works are not the issue. Jesus Christ has offered to God the one perfect, complete sacrifice for the sin nature and sins of mankind. 

Do you think that you or I could improve upon that perfection by our good works? To even consider that question is foolish. We are complete in Christ! The right and wise action to take is to accept and believe what God says He has done for us through Jesus Christ.

You are NOT wretched. You are NOT a filthy sinner. You are NOT separated from Christ.  You have accepted him as Savior therefore are beautiful, righteous and complete in him regardless of your “wretched sin”.

The reality is that loving your neighbor as yourself begins with you. You must love and value yourself if you are to love others. You have to respect yourself and acknowledge your own self-worth. You must take care of yourself so that you can love and help your neighbor.

Does this make you selfish? No. It makes you responsible.

I have many reasons for why I should hate this world. I have many reasons for why I should hate people. I have many reasons to not believe in God or question his existence. 

I have been emotionally and physically hurt by a plethora of people in my life. I have been abandoned and cut-off by my own family. I have been taken advantage of by people who I called my friends. I have been bullied. I have been rejected. I have had to move around the country several times, abandoning what I own. I have been divorced. I have been cast off. I have slept in my car. I know what it feels like to not know when my next meal will come. 

I have trials. I have tribulations. But I also have Christ. Though I have been through mountains worth of terrible things, I am no longer there. God has brought me through it. Christ has sustained me. Yahweh has provided for me. 

Darkness has fallen on me from time to time, but there is always The Light that never fails. You may be struggling, but do not worry for hope comes in the morning.

People don’t have to be perfect in order to deserve our love. They don’t have to be faultless or easy to like or get along with. That’s a good thing, because none of us are all those things all the time; none of us are perfect. God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, but He does expect us to show one another love and understanding. “All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

When people live or work closely together, it’s easy to get negative or judgmental about one another, and that doesn’t make things any better, of course. It becomes a vicious cycle of judging and criticizing and measuring that undermines friendships and working relationships.

But we don’t have to fall prey to that. There is an alternative, a strengthening cycle in which we love each other through our bad days, forgive one another’s mistakes, compensate for one another’s weak areas, and bring out one another’s strengths. Love begets love. It inspires others to give their best, it wins God’s blessing, and it makes us happy.

Often times when we invest ourselves into something and do not see the fruit of our labor, we become disappointed. Why did we work so hard? Why did we care so much? We spent so much time and energy and so many sleepless night to be left empty handed…

This situation can be very depressing until you perceive it in the view of sowing and reaping. In the first century, one man would plant the seeds and a different man would later reap… this is a well known turn of phrase ”one man sows and another reaps”

But what does that really mean? How the heck does that apply to putting in hard work and feeling overlooked?

 The joy was in the reaping, not always in the sowing. The sowers worked hard to prepare the ground and plant the seed, but often did not get to participate in the harvest. Consequently, they missed the celebrations that occurred during that special season of the year. Most people of this period saw this as an inequity that couldn’t be helped. It’s a little like working hard most of your life to amass enough money so you can enjoy the rest of your life in ease only to die unexpectedly and leave it for someone else to enjoy. Sometimes life just doesn’t seem fair! 

 When you become preoccupied with the temporal/material you lose sight of the eternal and fail to realize the potential of reaching others and pursuing excellence

We all carry a lot of disappointment, frustration, and sadness inside.  Our hearts, minds, and dreams are huge, wonderful, and incurably restless. In them, we intuit the Divine, its hugeness and its mystery. We don’t easily absorb limits, humiliations, indignities, rejections, and disappointments. We hurt and that does something to us.

When we turn away in coldness from someone or something we once loved, perhaps even from God and religion, we usually do so out of hurt, wounded pride, out of the need to protect ourselves and keep our dignity intact. While that’s understandable, it isn’t life giving.
 

What can we do with wounded pride? With disappointment? With jealousy? With the sense of having been wronged? What can we do with all those feelings that invite us to become cold, bitter, angry, and cynical? What can we do when we’ve sinned and betrayed our own dignity and dreams?
 

The natural temptation is to deny, to lie, to pretend that none of this is happening inside us. And so when we’re asked how we are, we generally say we’re fine, even when our hearts are bleeding, our jealousy is raging, our faces are tense, our eyes are sad, our dignity is compromised, and our fists are clenched.
 

Whenever we deny that we’re wounded, we prepare the perfect breeding ground for bitterness, anger, cynicism, coldness, and rage. When we don’t recognize and accept our wounds and frustrations, we easily grow cold, grow hard, and toughen our skins, minds, and hearts. We turn away in bitterness from what’s soft and life giving to what’s hard so as to put a protective shell over our wounded pride. It seems the only way to preserve ourselves.

There are so many different situations that come across our paths in life. But it’s all in the way we think. We can get past the brick walls that we come to. We can get through the trials we face. But I have found, the best way to do it, is through the One who knows and sees our hurts…God.

If there is one thing God has taught me of late, it is that after pain comes joy. Seriously, there is always a reason to be happy during painful times. God always gives us something to be thankful for, it doesn’t matter how great our pain.

When we are hurt, we naturally avoid dealing with the pain. Our bodies react to pain by sending a message to the nerve receptors to “numb out”. Eventually they adapt and we sense the pain, signaling it is time to fix the wound. We act this way emotionally too. We initially want to deny trauma or other events occur, but to grow and thrive, we need to face the pain at the right time and with the right help. Sometimes there are deep wounds that need healing. I have fought this battle, and no longer allow this pain to rule my life. It took time to process through, to understand I was not to blame, and to heal, but I did it, and you can too, whatever your hurt. A deeper cut needs more attention than a superficial scrape. Attend to your wounds. Be honest about where you are and move past your past.

We resist being honest with ourselves because it hurts and seems overwhelming. These create defining moments when we must decide to conquer fear and trust God for strength to push through the pain and achieve the honesty we need.