4.22.18 Wow, what a great lesson on rejection!

4.22.18 rejection lesson 

School got out for the day and everybody ran out of the classroom to go home.

The Little Girl ran home to tell her Mama that the kids are going to meet in her Clubhouse and could she make some lemonade? Her Mama smiled, happy that her Little Girl has friends. The kids are also going to play on the gym!’ she said excitedly. “Yes, I’ll make lemonade! I’ll make some snacks too.” “Oh thank you Mama!”

The Little Girl ran outside and make sure all her dolls were put away and the clubhouse was clean. She made sure there was enough places to sit for everyone and she swept off the back porch.

Her Mama brought out the lemonade and some snacks she made. The Little Girl thanked her and she set it all out on the counter in the clubhouse. And she waited.

She waited until it got dark, but nobody came.

She felt so awful. She was trying not to cry. But as she was putting the lemonade glasses back on the tray, tears were falling on the tray. She had gotten everything ready, cleaned everything up, she was so excited, somebody was coming over! She was going to have friends over at her house! She was going to have people to play with! But nobody came.

She took the drinks and food inside. Her Mama saw her.

She saw the streaks down her daughter’s face, she knew she’d been crying. She knew how bad she felt, the same thing had happened to her when she was young. She knew exactly how her daughter felt. She knew that she felt rejected and not important. Not liked. She knew she also felt as if she wasn’t loved. But her Mama knew different.

Her Mama came over to her and put her arm around her and led her to the sofa in the living room. She knelt down in front of her daughter who was sitting on the sofa with her head hanging down and she said, “honey look at me. The same thing happened to me when I was young and I know what you’re feeling. You feel rejected.” Her daughter nodded, “and you feel like people don’t like you and you were so excited and your hopes got up, and you feel so let down. And maybe, a part of you feels like you’re not loved.” Her daughter hung her head and nodded, tears falling on her lap.

“First I want to tell you, love has nothing to do with it. That is something that the devil tries to make us all think. He wants us all to think that we are not loved and that people don’t like us. That they don’t want to be around us. Those are lies. It seems like it’s true because you were excited and your friends didn’t come over. But baby, it’s all about perspective.”

Her daughter wiped her nose on her sleeve, looked up and asked “what’s that mean Mama?”

“Baby, perspective means the way you see something, or the way you hear something, or the way you think about something. Let me tell you a secret okay?”

She nodded. “There are a lot of children that are told these lies. And because their Mommies and Daddies don’t tell them differently they think it’s true. But it’s not true. It feels like it’s true and it sounds like it’s true, because the devil knows how to play with our emotions. He knows we all have emotions and he knows that we get excited about things. His whole job, his whole job is to make us doubt God and doubt ourselves. If he can get us to doubt ourselves and to doubt God, like doubting that we hear God or doubting that God loves us, then his job to destroy us is so much easier for him.

What really happens in these instances, is that people get sidetracked and distracted very easily. Remember when you were going to clean off the back porch last week and then you found a box of rocks and you started cleaning the rocks instead?”

Her daughter nodded her head. “That’s what getting distracted is, or getting sidetracked. You mean to do something but then something else catches your eye, or something else comes up. It’s not that you’re a bad person for not cleaning off the back porch, it’s just that something else came up and you completely forgot about cleaning the back porch because you were so intent on cleaning the rocks and getting them all shiny.

That’s how it is with people sweetheart. They mean to come over, like your friends, they meant to come over, they wanted to come over, but we don’t know what happened do we?”

Her daughter shook her head. Her Mama went on, “they could have been told to stay at home by their parents, they could have tripped over a rock – since they don’t have cork roads anymore it’s harder sometimes to get around for some of them. So they’d have to go home if they got hurt. They could have run out of the house and not closed the door and their Mom or Dad got mad at them. Anything could have happened. My whole point on this, is anything could have happened. We don’t know. And so we need to leave room in ourselves, in our hearts, to be able to forgive people immediately when we get disappointed.

We all get disappointed sweetheart. We all look forward to things that don’t come about. That don’t happen. We all do, whether you’re little or whether your  grown up like your Daddy and me. We all get disappointed, so we need to leave room in our hearts for people to be able to disappoint us. And we need to leave room to forgive them. Sometimes it’s very hard to do. Especially if it’s a very close friend. Like the Little Boy, I know he’s your close friend. And I know he didn’t come over. You need to forgive him. You need to give him space to be able to be who he is and how he is. That’s true of every single person in your life. If you learn this, your life will be a lot better off for the rest of your life.”

“How do I give him space to be who he is? I don’t understand Mama.” “By forgiveness. By being willing to forgive and doing it. Forgiveness comes from our heads, what we think, being hurt comes from our hearts, how we feel. After we forgive someone, we also need to let go of the hurt it caused. Do you know how to give your hurts to Jesus?” “No Mama, ” she started crying again.

“Sweetheart what you do is, you talk to Jesus. You tell Him how much your feelings are hurt. Tell Him exactly what you feel and how you feel. Picture yourself sitting on His lap and telling Him. He will soothe your heart. You need to tell Him everything about how you feel. Get it all out of you and give it to Jesus. All the hurt feelings, all the anticipation and excitement that you had. Your hopes that were broken. Your heart that was broken. And after you do that and you stop crying, then you get your Bible and you read one of the Psalms. Let’s get one of them now and read it shall we?”

The Little Girl nodded. “What are we going to read Mama?”

“Honey there are a lot of chapters in the Bible that talk about how friends let each other down and weren’t there for each other – like with David and King Saul. David and King Saul used to be friends and then King Saul tried to kill him. He did everything he could to kill David. But David would not hurt Saul.

You’ll see, it happened to people in the Bible way back then and it happens now. It happens to every single person you know. A broken heart, friends not being there for you when you think they should be, or even when they say they will be there. And they don’t show up.

So we’re going to read Psalm 145. After you read a Psalm, you praise God and tell Him how wonderful He is and how much you love Him and I promise you will feel better. Jesus will be able to take care of your hurt because you’ve given it to Him and He will be able to work in the situation. Baby, this is a paraphrase. A paraphrase means taking something that you read and saying it in words that you and others will understand.

“I am going to praise You forever God. Every day I’m going to praise You. You always keep Your promises. You help me when I’m hurt, You lift me up and give me what I need when I need it.You rescue those that call on your for help, who are honest about it. You protect me because I love You.”

So you can see sweetheart, there’s many things in the Bible that you can read. AND! Reading it out loud encourages you and praises God at the same time.”

Her daughter asked, “Mama, will you write that prayer down for me so I can read it at night when I say my prayers and I can keep it in my pocket all the time?” Her Mama said “yes sweetheart I’ll write it down for you. I love you baby. Do you feel better now?”

“Yes Mama I do, thank you. Will you help me to learn perspective? I don’t think I understand how to do it all yet.”

“Of course you don’t sweetheart! You just learned the word! Yes babygirl, I will teach you on this all the time. That’s what Mommies and Daddies are for. To teach their Little ones. I love you baby.”

“I love you too Mama. Is dinner ready?”

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