Dejection

It's never the moment that the injury happens that is the worst.  It's never the thick of pain that kills you, nor is it the shock of an event that will change your future.  These are manageable.  They only last for a short time.  It is the interview after.  It is when the dust settles.  It is when you are by yourself in deep reflection.  It is when the cameras are off and you are sitting alone trying to grasp the mountain that is ahead of you - the miracles that have to take place in order to put you in contention for another miracle.  The stacks of impossibilities that have to happen in order for you to accomplish what is set before you.

Your body can be broken.  Even your heart can be broken.  But when your Spirit is broken, you have hit the lowest bottom that a human being can reach.  This is dejection.  I am convinced that dejection is reserved for the pits of hell.  It is the place where someone reaches before they take their own life.  It is the darkest space that human beings can enter.  If you stay here for too long, the darkness has the ability to overcome all forms of light.  It is a darkness that cannot even remember light.  Every direction is dark.  This is not depression.  Dejection is darker than depression because medication cannot cure a broken Spirit.  Dejection means all hope is lost.  It is lonely beyond comprehension.  It is something that is not designed for us.  We must never go there.

I recall when my mother passed away.  The day she died was far from the worst.  There are too many distractions.  There are people consoling you.  Everyone is there for you.  You are comforted by small things.  There is a special grace that overcomes you because God knows how much your soul can take - He literally saves you from crumbling by just giving you the grace to survive.  But a few months after she passed away, people stopped coming over.  Life moved on and things started to become "normal."  But normalcy does not exist when you are overcome with deep grief and an uncertain future.  It is when the suffering becomes older where the real darkness sets in.  New suffering can be tolerated.  Old suffering can kill.  I felt the true weight of her not being with me anymore much later than the day she left. 

I chose to write about dejection because it presents an objective dialogue about faith.  A broken Spirit colors the way you look at yourself and everything around you.  Once you experience dejection, you will never be the same again - for better, or for worse.  It humbles you to the point of exhaustion.  It makes you feel so small that any type of bigness would require Supernatural strength.  It would require something that you don't have in yourself.  There are no self-help techniques that will overcome the power of such darkness.

I have experienced dejection 3 times in my life.  Every point of such brokenness killed me.  I left pieces of my original self behind, and moving on meant transforming into another version of myself.  Picking up the pieces that were left shattered was not an option.  I wish it was.  I wish it was from the bottom of my heart.  It would've preserved me and helped me feel dignified.  But it ruined me.  It made me feel like I had no identity.  There was no honor in my dejection.  I was humiliated and destroyed in the right ways.  But my humiliation and destruction did not trump my dejection.

This is the key.  We look at things like humiliation and being shattered as bad things.  But they are only bad if ithey are worse than the darkness you are in.  Once you hit the rock bottom, everything else you deal with as a by-product can be little lights along the way.  They are little clues that restore you.  They are tiny fragments of hope that build you.  You frown, kick, and scream - but they are making you whole again.  In my dejection, frustration was not even that bad.  In my dejection, my tears were not even that bad.  In my dejection, my humiliation did not overcome me.  In my dejection, my lack of knowledge did not deter me.  I began to realize that all these weaknesses that I had could not control me.  I found that all my struggles were so relative.  All my inhibitions and hang-ups pale in comparison to my "rock bottom."  So I made friends with all of them.  All my doubts became markers for freedom.  All my sorrow became battles for joy.  Every tear became a waterfall of living water.  My internal frustration turned into gladness.  Nothing could overcome my darkness, so I allowed these horrible things to become breadcrumbs for me to come back home.  To find my way back.  To become whole again.

Since the Lord is your portion, then dejection is a lie. Every form of oppression, insecurity, and stronghold can burn in hell. He places your boundary lines in pleasant places - boundary lines that are perfectly aligned for your calling - regardless of what man may say or think about you (including your closest friends, family, and allies).  If you are injured, come in last place, or just have not found your breakthrough, then take joy in your boundaries.  Everything that you are not, is everything that you are.  The fact that you "have-not" will enable you to have.  Where you are not, will enable you to get to where you will be.  You have a specific portion - and that is God.  He is not only enough, but He is Everything.  Never run after useless treasures, affirmation, encouragement, or validation.  He is Everything.  He will be Everything. Father. Mother. Brother. Sister. Best Friend. Manager. Spouse. Lover. Comforter. God.

Dejection can go to hell.  It can go all the way to hell.  Peace, and much love to you - Jeevo.