Today my guest is Author Linda Ford who speaks about rejection from experience. Here’s Linda:

“Love in the face of rejection requires incredible strength. Rejection comes in so many forms from outright hatefulness to subtle things like being constantly overlooked and undervalued. Sometimes the rejection is more in our imagination than in reality. For instance, I remember how many times I was the last to be picked for a sports team. It was because I was bad in sports. Looking back I can see how unimportant being able to make a homerun matters in the scheme of life but as a child my failure to perform in this area meant rejection by my peers.

But other times, the rejection is real and profound. I have adopted children. Adoption for me signifies that I chose this child. I wanted him or her enough to go through the invasive homestudy, the medical questionnaires, etc. But for the child it is a very real evidence of rejection. Not by me but by his biological parents. For some that sense of rejection is insurmountable. I had one son say to me, ‘You can’t love me. If my own mother didn’t love me, no one can.’ Every day and in every way he lived out the repercussions of his pain, sabotaging every step that could lead him to success. It was extremely hard to watch this process repeated over and over. I felt rejected by his pain and refusal to accept my love. How does a person learn to deal with rejection?

Even little rejections hurt. Big ones consume one’s very soul. I believe it takes a miracle of love—God’s love to heal this kind of pain. And a lifetime of learning to live in God’s love. I had to learn to let go and let God. Let go of my need for a loving response, let go of my need to fix, let go of my pain and simply be—through God’s healing love and strength—all that God wanted me to be in Him. I had to learn to live the truth of 2 Corinthians 12:9 My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

I address the subject of rejection in a very small way in my Love Inspired Historical story DAKOTA COWBOY (release July 2010). My heroine, Lucy, has been brushed aside and ignored by her mostly absent father. It’s taught Lucy to guard her heart especially around men. It colors many of her decisions. Yet she must trust a man to help her and in the end learns that some men are worthy of trust. I hope you read this story to find out how she learns this valuable lesson and whether or not she can be reconciled to her father. Two more stories will be released in this series that deals with children that need love. DAKOTA FATHER will be out in Jan. 2011 and PRAIRIE COWBOY later in the year.

I’d be interested in hearing how others have dealt with rejection.–Author Linda Ford

Well, Linda, I know a lot about rejection. At one time, I was rejected by practically every editor in New York City. But seriously we all face rejection except from God.
Thanks for sharing.–Lyn