I am sitting here, in my living room, listening to the symphony playing throughout the house. It is beautiful music. Sweet and deep. But the music is lost on me. As my family plays their nighttime symphony (read: snoring) I am sitting here awake with my thoughts.

My thoughts today have been consumed with a season of great personal frustration. I mean, I don’t know how else to say it, but I am just frustrated. And sad. And annoyed. But mostly frustrated. There is too much to this personal narrative. Far too much to put into words at 2:15 am, but it all rounds out with one big word: REJECTION.

For some context, over the past 8 months, I have submitted over 30 applications for jobs, had 3 interviews, and have received at least 10 letters of rejection. Apparently I don’t have the right credentials, the right experience, or know the right person. So this is, on the surface, about the overwhelming frustration I am experiencing from not being able to

GET A STINKING JOB!!!!!!!

Sorry I yelled at you. That wasn’t very nice.

But this is also tangled up in deeper stuff of moving halfway across the country, leaving our family and friends, feeling out of place, and still not having a community. So the feeling that seeps down is rejection.

I have never found that word to be so real. Of course I have experienced rejection, but it typically has a way of not making it past my top layer. I can remember so many times of feeling rejected from one thing or another. And there were tears. A great many deep sobs and snotty noses. So don’t get me wrong, I have experienced rejection. But those tears always served to bathe away the residue of those experiences and push me towards what was next.

But what I am walking through right now is so very different. This journey has pushed itself into a much deeper place than I have ever felt it before. My tears have lost their cleansing properties and the rejection seems to have taken up residence in my soul. I want it out.

Tonight as I was laying in bed trying to find sleep and ruminating on all of this junk, these words came softly to mind:

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth…

Those are the first verses to a chapter in the Bible, Psalm 121, memorized long ago. The chapter is a song of inspiration and motivation and reminder of God’s provision and protection. But something stood out to me as the words came to me. It’s easy to say things to myself or to others who are experiencing difficult stuff like, “God holds the future,” or “God will take care of us,” or “God will help you through it.” And the focus is always on what God will do.

But what is really striking, when I get right down to it, is that I know God. I know God. And more than that, I am not rejected by Him. I lift my eyes to Him and He sees me.

That sounds so cliché and simple and completely church-y to say. But it is a profound reminder to my aching soul that I am connected to the All Powerful. To the Creator of Everything. To the One who holds the stars. And that doesn’t give me a sense that He is going to fix it all or do anything for me. That’s what’s so incredible about this.

I think we always look to God as some genie who’s going to work it out for us. But tonight, I am making no assertion. I don’t believe that having bigger faith or bigger prayers will get me where I am trying to be in the job world. Nor do I believe that calling out to Him is going to magically make friends appear on my doorstep with casseroles and a ready made girls’ night. I just don’t think that’s how it works.

But in simply remembering that I know Him, I am suddenly feeling peace bathe and soothe the sting of rejection. I am connected to the Lord, who made Heaven and Earth. So while my mind struggles through the frustration that is plaguing me in this season, I will put my soul to rest, and hopefully find sleep tonight, with 2 things:

…a reminder that the Lord sees me and knows me….

…and the sounds of my beautiful blessings playing their symphony.

-Jewels