Rejection & It's Defense Mechanisms

Rejection is a very nasty place to be. When we feel rejected, it can attack every area of our lives. Rejection has it's own defense mechanisms that become real in one's daily life. For example, when rejected and hurt very badly by someone, we will often see them pull back into their shell. they won't allow people to get close to them. They put their walls up. The saddest part is that if that individual doesn't understand what is going on, they don't even recognize that they are putting up walls and shutting others out. That individual feels they are still living life the way they should be, but the sad part is that individual is getting the raw end of the deal. Maybe they tell themselves, "wow, I am NEVER going to let someone hurt me like that person did" in turn, they stop allowing others into their heart and lives.  They hold everyone at arms distance.

My husband was a man that was hurt many times in his life. Some as a young boy, some as a teenager and the biggest and deepest hurt when he was a young adult. The people that hurt him were the two people he loved most in the world at that time. He was a mess for months, because rejection, that had once set in as a boy, festered and then manifested through this situation. He shut people out and the once very sensitive boy turned into a very bitter and angry person, due to rejection in his life. The rejection was not his fault, but he was one of those people who swore over and over again that he would NEVER allow anyone to get that close to him to hurt him that deeply ever again. Verbal proclamations have power and Satan heard what he said and continued to feed that to him over and over again.   He protected himself the best way he knew how, and it was not even a conscious effort, just one that started to take hold over time. 

My father had somewhat of the same issue happen in his life.  I mentioned him before, and how rejection entered into his life.  It usually is the more 'sensitive' ones in the family are the ones Satan loves to get a hold of early on.  My father was a very sensitive young boy, just like my husband. They both had very sweet temperaments and real true hearts for God.  So, when my father started feeling rejection early on, he started putting up walls.  Those walls later held my mother, my brother and I at arms distance because he was not going to allow ANYONE close enough to hurt him again.  This was the defense mechanism he that came out against rejection in his life. 

My father and my husband are changed men.  God has freed them and rejuvenated them and I can't wait to tell their story.  I know some day God will have them telling their own story, but for now I just wanted to hit on what rejection can do in a person's life and how because of rejection, we put up our defenses.  I do believe that the people who are most detrimentally effected by rejection, are those that are by nature very sensitive people.  They are often very open to how others are hurting, and when they get hurt, they start to build walls.  They open themselves so fully to others and once that first big hurt hits them, the spirit of rejection sets in and the manifestations begin.  It is a long and sad process and very hard to watch, but I am so happy to tell you there is FREEDOM.  God is the one and only one who can set you free from that.  I can't wait to tell my whole story.  Thanks be to God and our Savior Jesus for setting the path to freedom in such easy access.  Satan will be defeated.