© 2019 David’s Harp and Pen
*DISCLAIMER: Certain names, places, and situations have been changed to protect the innocent from harm and the guilty from embarrassment.*
Six years ago, my life was changing in ways that scared me. My health was in bad shape, I was dealing with turmoil in my closest relationships, and I felt all around displaced. I knew relationships were important, but I was finding it harder and harder to put myself out there.
I had heard folks talk about Meetup, so I decided to give it a shot. One group met to watch pro football in sports bars near me, so I signed up. The group organizer and I talked several times on the Meetup website before the game and I was excited at the prospect of making new friends.
Game night rolled around, and not only did no other invitees show up, neither did the event organizer! I stayed until well after the game ended. I contacted the event organizer several times, but she never responded. I never got an explanation, and the Meetup group folded.
It would be two years before I would give any other Meetup groups a try. New, even more drastic changes had hit my life during that time which made the necessity of community more urgent. I did a search in my area of Christian singles groups, and found a few promising ones, but one in particular caught my eye: Beer and Bible Nashville.
I read the group description, and it wasn’t confined to singles. At first glance, it was intimidating. The group was studying the Bible at various craft beer venues around town. I don’t drink. I can’t drink for medical reasons. Also, the group seemed to be geared towards and comprised mostly of men. I was dealing with a broken heart that, three years after the fact, wasn’t showing any signs of healing. I told myself that the setting would be too scary and awkward, and that I wasn’t ready to be in a group where I may very well be the lone woman. God had other plans.
I talked to an old friend of mine one day, and, as was our habit, we bemoaned our lack of social life. She complained about how hard it was to meet men, and that church singles’ groups were made up mostly of women. I mentioned Meetup and Beer and Bible, and my friend said she wouldn’t want to go because she would be uncomfortable in a group full of men. Something about our discussion hit me the wrong way. I thought, “Okay, so a group with mostly women isn’t appealing, but we don’t want to try a group of mostly men, either. Are we falling into the trap of not trying something new because we think conditions are less than optimal? Are conditions ever optimal? Maybe I need to think about what I can learn instead of being scared.”
I looked at Beer and Bible again. The sense of intimidation intensified on the second look. Then I realized something⸺my reason for not wanting to go was the very reason I needed to go.
We often want big change in life, especially when we’re hurting or recovering from something, but big change is usually comprised of small decisions. We want to live differently, and we expect God to wave a magic wand and turn us into someone different instantly. That’s not how it works, though. Courage isn’t created in a vacuum, and neither is the ability to relate to others. It comes from doing things that scare us, forcing ourselves to relate and risk being vulnerable. I needed to do those things in a low-stakes setting. I decided to put my fears aside and check it out.
My first time at Beer and Bible, I was scared out of my mind, but there was another girl there, which made me feel better. I didn’t drink, but it didn’t seem to be an issue for anyone else.
The next meeting, I was the only one who showed up. The organizer had cancelled it, but I didn’t see the email and went to the restaurant. The circumstances reminded me bitterly of a situation with the guy who had broken my heart years before. I am not a crier, but I found myself crying in front of the hostess, so I ran out to my car, and bawled my eyes out, in private. I decided I was going to give up on Meetup entirely; that making new friends was too hard. But then God let me know that my conditioned response of running away and isolating myself was no longer an option for me.
I returned to all the Meetup groups, and am so glad that I did. For a while at Beer and Bible I was the only girl, and that was okay. I learned how to make small talk. I learned to overcome my fears and even lead discussions during the Bible studies. I met some fantastic people who have become dear friends. In some of the Meetup groups, I also met some scoundrels, which I had feared, but that was okay, too. I learned how to set boundaries. I learned how to have difficult conversations. I got a lot of practice in being a good judge of character.
With all the folks I’ve met in Meetup groups, the most important thing I’ve learned is that all of us are hurting. All of us are scared. All of us are looking for a comeback. There’s no shame in that, and the irony of it is that knowing others share your fears often produces a surprising amount of courage.
For a while, Meetup’s slogan was, “Find your people.” I am happy to say I did. I found myself and my nerve, too.
THE END
Sunday, April 28, 2019
Friday, April 19, 2019
Rejection's Silver Lining by Sharon Lurie
© 2019 David’s Harp and Pen
*DISCLAIMER: Certain names, places, and situations have been changed to protect the innocent from harm and the guilty from embarrassment.*
What do a blog about overcoming infidelity and a book about freelance writing have in common? An important answer to the questions “What must I do to be ready to date?” and “What must I do to become a paid writer?”: “Be able to handle rejection.”
How, then, does one practice how to handle rejection? I considered going into a Republican Facebook group and declaring my love for Hillary Clinton while, at the same time, going into a Democratic Facebook group and declaring my love for Donald Trump. However, that is not so much learning how to handle rejection as it is learning how to handle death threats. 😉
Rejection is not something any of us like to deal with, but all of us have to face it at some point. It’s similar in its stigma to failure, except where failure means we did something wrong, rejection sends the message that we are something wrong.
Several years ago, I was in the process of both trying to find paid writing work and putting myself out there to meet people when I stumbled upon this article from TIME—make rejection a game! Jia Jiang spent 100 days asking strangers for things like special-made doughnuts, driving a police car, and playing soccer in someone’s backyard. He asked for small but unusual things every day in order to build up his resistance to getting rejected. He said it helped him greatly in cultivating the courage to start his own business which, like starting out in writing or the dating scene, requires the ability to hear and deal with “no.” And dealing with rejection was something that requires regular practice.
I decided I wanted to conduct a similar experiment, and the first week or so I was surprised at how often my requests were granted. However, I soon learned, as a single guy friend who was afraid of re-entering the dating scene told me, “The worst someone can do is NOT say no.”
I confided in someone I trusted, someone with whom I had a lot of history, about some ongoing struggles I had experienced. No cross words had ever passed between us, and I had always felt secure in my relationship with this individual. It turned out I could not have been more wrong.
This person responded to me with a lifetime of venom and contempt towards me, as if this individual had been storing it all up for a special occasion when I was vulnerable to unleash it. This person had never before criticized or spoken angrily to me. And in one moment, all the security I felt in my relationship with this person went up in smoke. It destroyed our relationship, and we’ve not spoken since.
There are some experiences that wound us deeply, and then there are some that are so traumatic and unexpected that they cause an internal paradigm shift. This was the latter.
I became afraid of opening up to anyone. Even asking for little things of others became a Herculean task for me. I began to question every long-standing relationship I had, wondering if the other people in my life were going to turn on me so violently and without warning.
Fast forward to 2019, and I faced a similar situation. I agonized whether I should open up to someone else, and for several days, I had crippling flashbacks of the previous incident. When I prayed about it, the Scripture that kept coming to mind was John 14:6: ”Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
I realized something important: sometimes the truth is ugly. Sometimes we find out the person we thought loved us really didn’t. Sometimes we find out life isn’t as easy as we’d hoped it would be. Whatever the hard truth is we discover, though it may sting painfully at the time, it will ultimately be liberating to us in the long-term.
In my case, I found out someone I loved and thought highly of didn’t reciprocate that esteem, and it hurt for a long time. However, I needed to know this about this person. Had I not found out, the betrayal could have come in another, more intense form later. In the long run, I was liberated because I no longer have a covert narcissist in my life messing with my head.
I also discovered a hard and painful truth about me: that I was not the judge of character or healthy relationships I thought I was. This, too, though, turned out to be freeing, because it forced me to take an intense look at how I relate to others, and to realize that an absence of conflict in a relationship is not an indicator of its health, but rather how well the two people handle the conflict when it arises.
Avoidance of potential rejection is a Sisyphean undertaking, because it requires us to sell our souls again and again to denial in the name of comfort, and the pursuit of comfort is an ultimately cruel and insatiable taskmaster. Making knowing and living the truth at all costs is the only way to live. Not everyone will like us. Not everyone will believe in us. Better to find out sooner rather than later, because if I am entrusting my life and relationships to God’s control, I can rest assured that getting rejected on the outset is God’s protection of me down the road.
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis said, “In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth -- only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.”
I need not fear to know the truth about anything, how someone thinks of me, or even the ugly parts of me that eventually rear their ugly heads. One of the Names which Jesus uses for Himself is the Truth, and if He lives in me, there is no freer or safer relationship.
THE END
*DISCLAIMER: Certain names, places, and situations have been changed to protect the innocent from harm and the guilty from embarrassment.*
What do a blog about overcoming infidelity and a book about freelance writing have in common? An important answer to the questions “What must I do to be ready to date?” and “What must I do to become a paid writer?”: “Be able to handle rejection.”
How, then, does one practice how to handle rejection? I considered going into a Republican Facebook group and declaring my love for Hillary Clinton while, at the same time, going into a Democratic Facebook group and declaring my love for Donald Trump. However, that is not so much learning how to handle rejection as it is learning how to handle death threats. 😉
Rejection is not something any of us like to deal with, but all of us have to face it at some point. It’s similar in its stigma to failure, except where failure means we did something wrong, rejection sends the message that we are something wrong.
Several years ago, I was in the process of both trying to find paid writing work and putting myself out there to meet people when I stumbled upon this article from TIME—make rejection a game! Jia Jiang spent 100 days asking strangers for things like special-made doughnuts, driving a police car, and playing soccer in someone’s backyard. He asked for small but unusual things every day in order to build up his resistance to getting rejected. He said it helped him greatly in cultivating the courage to start his own business which, like starting out in writing or the dating scene, requires the ability to hear and deal with “no.” And dealing with rejection was something that requires regular practice.
I decided I wanted to conduct a similar experiment, and the first week or so I was surprised at how often my requests were granted. However, I soon learned, as a single guy friend who was afraid of re-entering the dating scene told me, “The worst someone can do is NOT say no.”
I confided in someone I trusted, someone with whom I had a lot of history, about some ongoing struggles I had experienced. No cross words had ever passed between us, and I had always felt secure in my relationship with this individual. It turned out I could not have been more wrong.
This person responded to me with a lifetime of venom and contempt towards me, as if this individual had been storing it all up for a special occasion when I was vulnerable to unleash it. This person had never before criticized or spoken angrily to me. And in one moment, all the security I felt in my relationship with this person went up in smoke. It destroyed our relationship, and we’ve not spoken since.
There are some experiences that wound us deeply, and then there are some that are so traumatic and unexpected that they cause an internal paradigm shift. This was the latter.
I became afraid of opening up to anyone. Even asking for little things of others became a Herculean task for me. I began to question every long-standing relationship I had, wondering if the other people in my life were going to turn on me so violently and without warning.
Fast forward to 2019, and I faced a similar situation. I agonized whether I should open up to someone else, and for several days, I had crippling flashbacks of the previous incident. When I prayed about it, the Scripture that kept coming to mind was John 14:6: ”Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
I realized something important: sometimes the truth is ugly. Sometimes we find out the person we thought loved us really didn’t. Sometimes we find out life isn’t as easy as we’d hoped it would be. Whatever the hard truth is we discover, though it may sting painfully at the time, it will ultimately be liberating to us in the long-term.
In my case, I found out someone I loved and thought highly of didn’t reciprocate that esteem, and it hurt for a long time. However, I needed to know this about this person. Had I not found out, the betrayal could have come in another, more intense form later. In the long run, I was liberated because I no longer have a covert narcissist in my life messing with my head.
I also discovered a hard and painful truth about me: that I was not the judge of character or healthy relationships I thought I was. This, too, though, turned out to be freeing, because it forced me to take an intense look at how I relate to others, and to realize that an absence of conflict in a relationship is not an indicator of its health, but rather how well the two people handle the conflict when it arises.
Avoidance of potential rejection is a Sisyphean undertaking, because it requires us to sell our souls again and again to denial in the name of comfort, and the pursuit of comfort is an ultimately cruel and insatiable taskmaster. Making knowing and living the truth at all costs is the only way to live. Not everyone will like us. Not everyone will believe in us. Better to find out sooner rather than later, because if I am entrusting my life and relationships to God’s control, I can rest assured that getting rejected on the outset is God’s protection of me down the road.
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis said, “In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth -- only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.”
I need not fear to know the truth about anything, how someone thinks of me, or even the ugly parts of me that eventually rear their ugly heads. One of the Names which Jesus uses for Himself is the Truth, and if He lives in me, there is no freer or safer relationship.
THE END
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