MOSSing
Rejected. Not chosen. Passed over.
It happens to all of us. First, it’s at the playground or a school team. Soon, it’s the cliques and that person you like. Eventually, it’s that college of choice, this desirable job, or that hoped-for promotion. I don’t know how I got the idea that with each rejection I’d become stronger. That I’d be less pervious to pain. That as I matured it would sting less. But I’m finding that the older I get and the more honest I am, the more rejection actually stings and hurts.
One of my loved ones got passed over and rejected this week. I found myself wanting to make her pain go away so she didn’t have to…
cry herself to sleep.
question her worth.
wrestle through the why not.
wonder if she’s good enough.
have doubts about if she can ever measure up.
work through whether or not she can try again.
I really wanted to make her feel better and when I’m coming from that place, I have favorite tactics - forms of distraction to numb the emotional muck. I’m grateful to have been reminded by Adam Young that we slow down our journey to healing when we MOSS:
Minimize
Over-spiritualize
Speed through our pain
Self-loathe
Pay attention when you or someone you care about is in pain. In trying to help, it’s very tempting to:
Minimize and say something like: “I know it’s hard now, but in a few years you’ll have a different perspective.”
Over-spiritualize by being too quick to say: “God will work this out for your good.”
Speed past pain unconsciously with: “This hurts, so I will busy myself then I don’t have to sit in and feel all this mess.”
Self-loathing: “How could I have been so foolishly presumptuous to think this would work out?”
With each tactic, we armor up and self-protect more. It hurts less that way, all the while, we show up less as well.
A dear friend reached out to me this morning to share her healing journey. As I listened, I was stunned by the beauty and timeliness of her heart’s overflow. Profoundly blessed by her words, I realized this was the opposite of MOSSing. Here is a woman facing her pain without being swallowed up by it. She read to me part of her declaration of surrender from the book Good Boundaries and Goodbyes by Lysa Terkeurst. May you experience this deep, comforting, and powerful truth:
“We are powerless to stop grief from happening. It will visit us all in various forms and for many different reasons. But the absolute commonality for all grief is the disappointment and pain that accompanies it. We mourn what will not be. But even more so, we mourn what imperfection and sin has done to all of us. We all contribute to the reason there is so much pain in this world. We all hurt others. We all fall short in the roles and responsibility we carry. We all cause grief and we all carry grief. But the good news is we don’t have to be consumed by our grief. Isaiah 53 helps us remember we don’t carry it alone. Jesus bore our grief, both the grief we cause and the grief we endure. And He provides healing and hope for us all.”
