The Gift of Rejection x Sarah Jakes Roberts & Nona Jones

Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts is chopping it up with none other than Nona Jones, and trust me—you’re gonna want to lean all the way in for this one. Nona’s got a new book called The Gift of Rejection, and they’re talking about how rejection—yep, the thing that stings—can actually be a blessing in disguise. They’re getting real about the times life said ‘no’ and how those moments actually pushed them toward a bigger purpose.

Watch the FULL “The Gift of Rejection with Nona Jones” episode on the Woman Evolve TV App. For audio-only, head over to iHeartRadio, Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

you said pain was its wrapping paper I feel like that is worth marinating going because some of us don’t get past the wrapping paper um I’ve never had a gift that I thought was so beautiful that I don’t want to open it um but I have had some issues in my life that felt so painful that it felt like there was nothing that could come from the inside of it but the Paradigm of pain being wrapping paper and US daring to do the work to navigate the pain to figure out what’s inside of it feels like a journey

that each of us should be willing to take but tearing that wrapping paper over open is almost more painful than the incident itself how do you get to a space where you’re willing to say okay if pain is a wrapping paper how do I carefully um my husband always when he opens presents he he never rips it open because when he was growing up they reuse wrapping paper and so like he opens it very carefully so that he can preserve the wrapping pap paper I feel like that is kind of how we’re going to have to navigate pain being the wrapping

paper how do we gently begin to tear open that pain so that we can figure out the purpose connected to it I think it it starts with I mean honestly the reason why I wrote the book is because just the awareness that rejection is a gift in and of itself is a paradigm shift because what that does is it puts you in a different posture from where at first you you would see yourself as I’m a victim this thing happened to me I’ll never get through it I’ll never get over it but now that you recognize oh wait there’s a gift in this

it places you in the posture of a student which is okay what can this teach me about myself what can this teach me about other people what is it that God may want to work through this situation for my good um I believe that rejection is a gift that will make you better if you open it or bitter if you don’t and many people are walking around bitter because like you said we stop at the wrapping paper and I think having that just thought like okay this hurts and there’s also something that I need to learn from this what is the lesson

that’s how you start to slowly peel it back and begin to explore what it wants to teach you okay so I have a question for you because I think when we think about rejection we’re generally thinking about us being on the receiving end of rejection but I want to talk a little bit about the reality that in order for us to have boundaries in order for us to lead in order for us to have self-care we have to reject certain people certain things that that to me is another gift of rejection is what you get to hang on

to when you dare to reject other people’s expectations other people’s needs and an effort to protect yourself has this Paradigm changed the way that you handle the reality of rejecting other people do you think it’s fair to say that when we set boundaries we’re rejecting other people let me start there I think that’s actually a really important Insight which is yes um rejection is ultimately what we do when we say no to the demand that somebody placed on us and sometimes rejection is necessary it’s it’s a gift to us but

it’s also a gift to the other person and I I’ll frame it this way um I’m sure you understand this there are people who see your success My Success somebody else success as an opportunity to build their empire on what God has built through you now once you become aware of that it is important that you place a boundary between you and that person because otherwise that person will actually kind of absorb the glory that God has for your life for theirself and and that will actually damage their character and

I think as Leaders one of the responsibilities that we have is to help people growing character so if somebody is like I believe that I’m more qualified than you know they are it’s important to say no because there’s some learning and growth in development they have to do now for the other person who’s experiencing that of course that’s painful right like it’s painful to have somebody close a door for you but they’re closing the door because they know that there’s more growth needed and

so there’s a gift in that rejection for you as an individual to have somebody close a door because you’re not ready to walk through it yet there’s a gift in that and so so again having that as like the thought Paradigm it becomes a learning opportunity on both sides of the experience