When You Feel Rejected

WHEN YOU FEEL REJECTED

I was sixteen and it was a Saturday night. Like a lot of silly teenagers, my friend K and I had convinced ourselves we were losers—because, after all, no one in the whole world stays home on a Saturday night.

Both K and I had after-school jobs, and we’d saved a tiny bit of money between us. So, we did what absolutely no teenager in our two-lane-road, small town ever did on a Saturday night—

We called a taxi.

Our destination was the local “party store.”  Only you have to capitalize the P and the S. That’s where high school kids in our 1970’s town hung out and played foosball.

The Party Store was packed with our classmates. A dozen or so spilled out into the parking lot while songs like The Spinners’ Could It Be I’m Falling In Love and Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road blared from car speakers.

As we stopped outside The Party Store, an old pick-up truck lumbered toward us. Behind the wheel was a boy K was enamored with.

 

Boys in a pickup

K’s dreamboat pulled up and made small talk with her while I stood and waited impatiently. In the meantime, Mr. Dreamboat’s two truck passengers constantly motioned for him to wrap it up.

When the boys finally drove away,  Kay turned to me.

“They’re coming right back so you and I can take a ride with them.”

 

 

Even as I protested, I knew I’d lose the fight. I wasn’t in the mood to ride around with a bunch of boys. We’d come to play Foosball. But since I couldn’t afford the taxi ride back home by myself, I had no choice but to give in.

When the truck returned a few minutes later, one of the boys was gone.

 

The passenger

K and I piled into the truck and introduced ourselves to the lone passenger. After some polite chit -chat,  I was surprised to discover how much the two of us had in common. We were both military brats,  had lived overseas, and planned to go to college.

By the time the boys dropped us off at K’s house, the four of us had planned a double date for the following weekend.

After a double date, the boy in the truck asked for a single date. In the end, I dated him for five years. We even went to college together.

And this year we celebrate our forty-something wedding anniversary!

The rest of the story

It was years before my husband got up enough nerve to tell me the rest of the story.

That night at The Party Store—when the boys drove off and then returned—they were drawing straws.

The one who drew the short straw had to come back and ride in the truck next to me.

Yep.

I was the booby prize!

 

WHEN YOU FEEL REJECTED

My husband and I have loved and devoted ourselves to each other for decades, yet the truth still stings a little.

There will always be a part of me that winces about starting out on the short end of a straw.

Maybe that’s one reason I find so much delight in knowing this: Before the world was ever made, God chose us to be His!

 

When you feel rejected, remember the God of the Universe has never rejected you. For everyone who’s been abandoned…neglected…on the outside looking in…or a sure nuff booby prize…that’s incredible news!

God didn’t draw the short straw when He chose you.

He chose you because He loves you.

Amazing, I know. And so hard to believe.

But it’s true.

You’ve been in His plan all along.

 

 

 

Long ago, even before He made the world, God chose us to be His very own, through what Christ would do for us; He decided then to make us holy in His eyes, without a single fault – we who stand before Him covered with His love. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us. And He did this because He wanted to!

Ephesians 1:3-6 (The Living Bible)