Q: How do you feel when you’ve been rejected?
A: Not good.
Q: How do you view the word rejected?
A: Not good—harsh and abrupt.
Q: What is our tendency to forget rejection?
A: Not good… or easy.
Q: What do we do when we are rejected?
A: Doubt.
Q: How many of us tend to avoid the word rejected?
A: I don’t like that word!
If you’re like me, your reactions are similar to mine. No matter how rejection is framed or worded (turned down, came in second, someone else is a better fit, dismissed, not accepted, etc), I simply can’t come up with a positive way to think about or discuss rejection. After all, perhaps you’ve experienced some of these rejections:
- That job I applied to was the “perfect” job, and I finished “second”
- The raise and promotion I felt I deserved, I didn’t get it
- That dream I was pursuing proved elusive and was then crushed
- The career I initially pursued, turns out it wasn’t my cup of tea
- The person I networked with, where I thought I’d find some encouragement, threw me in the ditch
- The people I thought would support me in my career actually turned against me
Ouch! Not exactly a list that I like to remember!
So, I was taken by surprise a bit when I saw this headline in “Nice News” yesterday: “Why Highschoolers Are Decorating College ‘Rejection Cakes.” Here’s the beginning of the article:
“My name is Megan, and I got deferred from Princeton,” a grinning high school student announces in a TikTok video with nearly 400,000 likes, before inserting a toothpick flag with a tiger-print Princeton “P” into a rainbow sprinkled cake. “Yay!” a group of her friends cheer in the background.
In the video, captioned “Deferral is detour and rejection is redirection,” four other teens take turns sharing the colleges they were deferred or rejected from and inserting their own toothpick flags into the cake, occasionally erupting into fits of giggles and receiving encouraging responses from their peers behind the camera.
Lighthearted “rejection cake” videos like these have been making the rounds on social media in recent weeks, as this year’s high school seniors hear back from universities — for better or worse. The trend is a cheeky, empowering counter to the plethora of college acceptance videos shared online.
“It’s OK if you don’t get into your schools,” one participant says at the end of the aforementioned video. “We are all on amazing paths.”
My initial reaction to the first couple paragraphs was, “Ok, more psycho-babble nonsense.” But then as I read the last two paragraphs and focused on the bolded sentences, it struck me how real and true these statements are.
Rejection is Part of the Process
History is FULL of people who were rejected and later achieved amazing results. Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney, Harry Truman, and the Beatles just start the list. Additionally, my faith lens jumps into play with almost every single character in Scripture suffering some type of rejection or failure before accomplishing what God had in store for them. I’m thinking of Jacob, Joseph, Gideon, David, EVERY prophet, and finally Jesus Himself!
Isaiah 53:3 foretold this, “He (Jesus) was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.”
John 1:10-11 tells us more, “He (Jesus) was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him.”
He was even betrayed by one of His own disciples! In Luke 22:21 Jesus said, “But the hand of him(Judas) who is going to betray me (Jesus) is with mine on the table.”
I’m hopeful you’re tracking with me so far. Yes, rejection is painful and isn’t something any normal person wants to experience. BUT, in our faith and history, we see many, many examples of people who were not defined by the rejections they experienced. They persevered. And as we can learn from Generation Z, reframing the fact of rejection can lead to a new direction!
So perhaps you can agree with all that. But, HOW can you move forward? It sure seems like putting candles on a cake isn’t going to be magic pixie dust that changes the answers to those first five questions at the start of the blog! WHAT do you do?
Turn Rejection into Redirection
Here are 10 suggestions to triage this situation and potentially turn rejection into redirection!
- Read His Word – Claim HIS promises to us! Love, joy, peace, mercy, and grace! He is faithful and lays out many commitments to His people.
- Pray – Praise Him for those promises and commitments and ask His help to apply them to your life. Listen in silence and meditation for His whisper to you from His Word.
- Acceptance and Grief – Necessary and normal. Acknowledge reality and express your feelings to yourself and perhaps someone close to you.
- Reflect – What can I learn from this experience? What lessons could I be taught?
- Accountability – What more could I have done to potentially get a different result?
- Prepare – Don’t let whatever happened here define you. You are far more than any specific experience.
- Get Back Out There – If you’ve ever been hit by a pitch in baseball, coaches tell you to immediately get back into the batter’s box. Don’t let rejection cause you to fear the next outcome.
- Successes – Bring back to mind some of your successes to visualize yourself succeeding next time.
- Encouragement – Share your experience with others who can support you. They might be able to share some advice and counsel with you. Our Crossroads Guides are standing by! Click here to request a free consultation.
- Cake – Follow the Gen Z example! Light some candles on a cake to celebrate an answer to a direction you were headed. Now you can head in a different one!
“We are all on amazing paths!” What does God have to say about it? What could your new path be?
Dave Sparkman currently serves as the volunteer Crossroads Career board chair and local ministry leader. He is also the founder and managing director of Spark Your Culture, a corporate culture consulting firm. Prior to that he worked at UnitedHealth Group, a Fortune #5 public company, serving in the role of Chief Culture Officer. His unemployment experience came from the implosion of Arthur Andersen, where he served as the West Region Managing Partner, People.
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