How to Deal with Rejection and Unmet Expectations

Lysa TerKeurst sits down with Chad Veach for Praise on TBN. Lysa discusses her book, It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way, and addresses dealing with rejection and unmet expectations. Lysa TerKeurst shares her personal experience with rejection and how she now manages expectations.

God’s Messages 💌

Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week.. Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….

I I wanna go back to you said a a a really strong word that jumped out, and that’s the word rejection.
Okay. And here you are, you’re facing rejection from the one that you should have the most acceptance with your spouse.
And you’re going through this I mean, we all face rejection, but not not at this rate at this level.
How did you sort that? How did you get your identity and your security, your confidence back?
I think I’m still working on that.
Um, you know, what’s really complicated is I wrote a book, um, uninvited in
2015
that was coming out in 2016.
And so right after I found out, uh, what was going on in my marriage uh, that was in February of
2016.
In March of 2016, my, um, rough draft pages from the book, uh, uninvited, came to me.
And I remember just weeping and asking god why would you have me write a book on rejection?
And now I’m gonna have to talk about this book that I’ve written on rejection.
Jeez.
And now I’m gonna be walking through the worst rejection of my life.
Like, why would you allow me to do that?
And I I felt like, the lord was just stirring in my heart. He wasn’t doing this to me.
He was doing this for me.
Wow.
You know, he had me write the book last year that I would need this year so desperately.
I mean, he had me studying rejection and the biblical response to rejection.
and god’s tenderness to us in our rejection and his compassion for the rejected.
He had me studying that for 2 years. And so he he wasn’t doing this to me.
He was entrusting me with this.
Wow.
And, And I I just remember spreading those pages out weeping, weeping over the words that god had given me.
And now that person I pictured that I was writing the book for, it was me. It was me.
And so even in that, the lord was so tender and so good.
But I think rejection is so hard because in human relationships, we don’t know what to do when someone’s been rejected.
If someone dies, we know how to rally around the left behind.
Right.
When someone dies. Right? We know how to have a marked moment.
We know how to celebrate what was and then help that person in grief walk toward what will be.
But with rejection, there is no marked moment. There is no celebration of what was.
There’s just a shattering of what you thought would be.
And it’s it’s just so impossibly hard because that other person is still living and breathing.
And and what is the hardest, I think, is when someone dies, at least you know that they didn’t want to go away, and you didn’t want them to go away.
But in rejection, that other person may actually be happy to have walked away.
Right.
And that’s what’s so hard.
Sure.
And then how do you pick up the pieces and move on when the future you had planned no longer applies because that person’s not there.
It’s a it’s a deep grief. It’s a complicated grief. and it’s something that, um, I think I’m still processing.
Absolutely. So you face rejection and uh, you go through physical pain and, you know, I love the pilgrimage.
That’s so great that you go see these friends But then you go back home and still nobody laying next to your bed.
That’s right. And to compound that, you know, I went from having a very busy home life.
And when we raised 5 kids, well, the last kid left home.
And so now I’m facing literally an empty nest. And so it was just It was so hard.
I don’t like being alone. I mean, I really don’t like being alone. I like having my alone time. Right.
But I like for some other human to be in the vicinity that if I screen, they will come and help
me. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.
So this was a whole another level
—
Wow. — of of lonely and of, um, being with the lord in utter quiet time.
You know, um, I don’t think you could have chosen a better title because as you’re telling the story, I’m thinking for your life, this is not supposed to go this way.
This shouldn’t happen to you. Maybe one, um, you know, physical pain, and you have a surgery, but talk to me about when it feel, you know, the old saying when it rains, it pours.
How did you continue to Read the Bible. Did you do that?
Um, go to church. be around commune.
How did you continue to go do the things that you knew you’re even though I don’t want to do this stuff, I’m gonna do some of these things because I know it’s gonna eventually bring some health and bring some life.
What were some of those things besides the pilgrimage you did?
And how did that start to massage some life back into you? You’re in the empty nest. Nobody’s there.
Quiet times, the ice creams in the freezer How do you how do you sort out of that?
I’m I’m just amazed that you’re here right now with a book out of your pain. talk to me.
What did you do besides the Hooker Mitch?
Well, I filled my home with praise music. That was really important.
I had someone come over and help me figure out the technology side of playing music these days is ridiculous.
Like, when I was growing up, we put a cassette tape in. Right? It was not complicated.
How is, like, from your phone to the wireless speaker to the this that, you know, it was all kinda complicated.
But, um, I had someone come over and, um, I knew I had to feel the quietness with something.
Right.
because every void demands to be filled. It’s our choice, what we fill it with.
And so I listen to so many sermons. I mean, I even had a TV installed where my bathtub was.
And someone said, that’s weird. You’re like watching preachers as you’re in the bath. I’m like, can’t see me. Alright.
It’s not a problem. I’m telling you, I filled my face up with truth.
And then there were days that the space was filled with tears.
Sure.
And I I didn’t I didn’t wanna go to church sometimes, and I I didn’t want to call a friend.
You know, it’s a messy process. I mean, we’re we’re human.
Sure.
You know? But one thing as I as I was reading the Bible, I asked the lord to give me some spiritual orientation with the Bible.
And do you know the first two chapters of the Bible deal with the perfection of the way god designed things to be, that that it it perfection when he created this world in Genesis 1 and 2, we get to see the beauty of how it was supposed to be.
And then the last two chapters of the Bible, Revelation
2122,
perfection returns.
Wow.
Garden of Eden returns. There will be no more death, no more crying, no more tears, right?
But all those chapters between the first 2 and the last 2, there is no perfection. Right.
And I had to make peace with that reality.
because I think I expected a perfection on this side of eternity that is not possible besides my relationship with god.
But you know what? Walking through this journey, I am so thankful that lesser loves can never satisfy me.
I’m so thankful that lesser loves will always disappoint us because my heart now knows where to turn to to get that deep satisfaction.
And the gift that that’s given me is tremendous because I can now look at you as a human and not expect a perfection from you that would crush us in the weight of a relationship.
I can look at my husband now. and I cannot expect perfection from him.
No husband was ever supposed to be or carry the weight of trying to be my god.
Right.
Right? Only god is supposed to do that. And so, you know, I learned a lot.
I filled that void with an atmosphere of learning. And I needed to learn some things.
Absolutely. Well, I think, you know, the void most of us fall into the temptation of filling it with things that are immediate.
substance, uh, relationship. And if you can, and and it’s a big if, if you can bring yourself to filling it with healthy things.
You know, as you were talking and I was thinking of that scripture, faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of god, whether it’s a bathtub or the living room when you figure out the speaker or in your car, I know for me, when I face the hardest times in my life, I felt the most tempted — Yep.
— to fill it with the wrong things. Did you send some of that polling?
Absolutely. because we don’t we don’t like to feel pain. We are conditioned to numb the pain.
Like, if we have a headache, we take Advil, right?
I mean, if we’re hurting, we go to the doctor and say take away the pain. Yeah. Right?
If, um, emotionally, we’re hurting, you know, we want a quick fix for that.
So for me, um, there were lots of of opportunities for me to numb the pain, for sure.
But I also knew that to stay in a place of just numbing the pain would never would ne I would never deal with the pain.
And if I never dealt with the pain, then I could never heal from the pain.
The only way to get to healing is get to the dealing. Right? So you gotta
Say it again for the people in the back. Hold on.
You can’t just drop she drops these bars like it’s nothing.
just and I don’t wanna take my phone and write it down, but I don’t they won’t let me on my phone up here.
Say to get my god. I would say that one more time.
Well, the only way to get to the healing is to get to the dealing.
Like, you gotta deal with the pain if you’re ever gonna heal the pain.
And dealing with it is no fun. Trust me. And numbing it, seems like the better choice at the time.
Right. Um, and there’s no shortage of things to numb our pain with. Right?
They’re, you know, We we have a 1,000,000 distractions that are eager to help us, but those distractions will never never help us in the long term.
so true. They
only give us some relief in the short term.
So true. You are so insightful