Unwanted Moments: An Unwanted Life Story

This is the fifth instalment in the Unwanted Life story series, with today’s ‘unwanted moments’ story coming from Pastor Natalie over at Examine This Moment. It’s been a couple of years since the last instalment. You can find Pastor Natalie’s blog here. Please take the time to read their contribution to my Unwanted Life story series and then visit Pastor Natalie over on their blog to check out their content.

 

Without further ado, here’s Pastor Natalie’s story in her own words.

 

Unwanted Moments: Examine This Moment

 

There are moments in life that can affect each of us in a variety of ways. Whenever we are being made to feel unwanted, rejected, not accepted, not welcomed, etc. These unwanted moments can be some of those moments that impact our mental health. Thankful to Unwanted Life to be able to share some of these unwanted moments with you.

 

For privacy and respect, I will not give too many details. Sadly, I can honestly share more than one unwanted moment in my life. However, I will share one which especially stands out to me. You see, I can remember believing all was well as my family became a part of a community.

 

My husband and I were invited to lead a group where we would encourage people within a community. It seemed, that at first because we were new, people in the community would not attend as they did not know us. I could understand we had to build a relationship with these people. So, my husband and I would pray together and encourage one other to lead this group and give it our best.

 

As time went on, we noticed some of the same people who invited us to teach, would come in and say things like, “You will always be in the back.” “People do not know you, so you will not have many come.” We were saddened by this, especially since we were approached and invited to bring encouragement. It did not make any sense to us.

 

Suddenly, we began to see more and more people attending and before we knew it, we ran out of room. So, we knew we were meant to do this. Next, we were moved to another meeting place and that too became full. Finally, we found ourselves moved again and this time the place was not kept up at all. We fixed it up and made it feel welcoming and cozy for everyone who would attend. We found ourselves once again exploding with limited space. This made us so encouraged. We began to ask others in the group to help us with things more and more. It seemed word of mouth about our group was spreading and others wanted to attend too.

 

 

Then one day, we were told by one of the same people who initially asked us to do these times of encouragement to suddenly just stop. There was no reasoning given. It was just said, this will be your last time (that day) having this group. We felt so saddened. How can you one moment be invited to do something and then suddenly be told you can’t anymore? This for us felt as though we were unwanted and unwelcomed. We had to take time to pray so we would not stay with our hearts heavy with rejection and lack of empathy.

 

There were connections made at that time with others that we felt close to and now we were told not to meet any longer. This sudden unwanted moment caused us to question, did we miss something? Were we not supposed to be doing what we were doing in the first place, although we were having wonderful times together with this group? What did we miss?

 

 

This was such a pivotal moment and an important choice to be made. Would I become bitter about these things or better? I have found that you will not always be loved, wanted, accepted, or welcomed. However, I think it is so important to not allow these moments to cause you to quit what you believe you are meant to do. We are not called to please everyone and in recognizing this, you begin to see that you do not have to either.

 

We moved on from there with forgiveness in our hearts and felt like it was an important life lesson. People may invite you and then reject you because of different reasons. It is vital to know when to move on from things and not allow those unwanted moments to take an ugly hold on your heart. Perhaps it was jealousy, or intimidation that we were becoming too large of a group. No matter what the reason. I know we were there for a reason, and I can honestly say I do not regret it. I also saw the importance of knowing when to move on from a place.

 

 

Don’t let anyone or anything make you believe you are stuck.

There is always another way. Keep pressing on and find it.

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I’d like to thank Pastor Natalie from Examine This Moment for sharing their story about managing a feeling of rejection with my followers and me: it takes a lot of courage to open up about such experiences. But at the same time, sharing such personal stories helps spread awareness of how being made to feel unwanted can affect our mental wellbeing if we let it.

 

As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, feel free to share your experiences of feeling unwanted in the comments section below as well. If you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, then sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, click the red bell icon in the bottom right corner to get push notifications for new articles.

 

Also, if you’d like to submit your own stories of feeling unwanted, then let me know by contacting me through my social media accounts or by going to the contact page.

 

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