Because of the path the last couple of years has taken me through, most of my life is dictated now by the idea that it's better to have no friends than to have friends who will probably hurt you. This isn't to say I haven't had some really stellar friends along the way, but my energy to build new relationships is relatively low. As a result, I typically find myself distrusting potentially enjoyable relationships because the possible benefits aren't worth the risk to me anymore.
The same scars that are hurting my social and love life also affect my professional/ministerial potency. My love for worship ministry is so intense that I am nearly incapable of maintaining healthy indifference during job hunting. Even in non-ministry job hunting, I found myself deeply wounded when rejected by entry-level jobs that were well below me. I simply can't handle rejection.
Professional Friendzoning
Professional rejection is always personal to me. Every application voluntarily submitted by me comes with a piece of my heart attached. Prudence says not to let my heart get caught up, but I rarely have a choice in the matter. I can't research a church with an open position and not have a strong reaction of either attraction or disgust. By the time I'm partway through an application for a church that seems like a fit, I've already imagined myself as part of their community, which makes the rejection letter/call so much more painful.
Maybe it's because I don't see my applications as a request for a job, but as my offer of a blessing that I believe could benefit them immensely. When you ask for something and someone says, "no," it's easy to shrug off because you know that it was theirs to give or decline from giving. But it's something else entirely when you offer something and they refuse what you have painstakingly designed for their benefit.
There's a particular church into which I've invested such time, love, and prayer and I am now realizing will probably never want me as part of their staff. And my proposals are not a pitch for a product I sell: the heart I place in my craft makes it an act of love that I present to a community that has blessed me immeasurably. So being refused cuts me to my very core. It seems that the team I once dreamed of joining will not have me, not under under any condition, besides as a set of fingers. I'm just a fanboy.
So I don't ask anymore. I could ask why they always refuse my service as a music leader, one of my strongest skills, but I don't want to hear their answer. For fear that knowing the truth might destroy me, I've decided that I'd rather not know. I don't deserve to be serving at a place that isn't begging me to stay. The vast discrepancy between the opinion of those who have recently heard me sing at the piano or direct a worship team and those who haven't is so staggering that I can only conclude that something about my persona tells people that they're not going to like what they hear. Apparently, I look a lot less capable than I am.
The truth is that I know my worth as a leader in music ministry, but I'm bad at convincing others. The fact remains that I'm damaged goods, now. I simply cannot bear to put myself in a spot so vulnerable. My life is in my music and service to the Church. I have seldom been as angry and hurt as the time a pastor told me that he didn't think my heart was really in my ministry, that it was just another gig to me. If I'd expressed my full sentiments to his accusation, his teeth would have been picked up by the street sweeper 2-1/2 years ago.
I, who once lived with reckless abandon for the passions that made my heart race, cling to the numbness and normality that keep me safe from the risk of disappointment. I'd take on the world, but I've brushed with death and its stench wafts from the very paths that my heart longs to tread. No callouses necessary, I'll keep me in a cage until my heart's a little stronger. I avoid the the pursuit of dreams, plagued by the fear of crushing disappointment. We never fully heal, do we? I'm fed up with feeling.
I pray that as time goes on, I will regain my previous boldness and that the path I've walked will help me be a blessing and a light for Christ in others' lives. Most of my bitterness that I used to battle has been replaced with indifference. I suppose that's a step in the right direction. Perhaps it's finding the right balance between recklessness and self-seclusion. Healing's a process and it needs some patience.
I not asking for anything
People misunderstand my frustration sometimes as, perhaps, a sense of entitlement. I went through a 4-year Music and Ministry B.A. program and expected to be handed a job the day after I graduated. Probably, for a while, that's what it was: entitlement. But it's different now. I like attention and praise, money's nice, and status is lovely. But my heart is happiest when I can see my actions positively impacting the lives of others.
Maybe I just have a curse for loving the wrong people. I expect my affections to be returned way more often than reality is willing to oblige. I should understand that the desire to be embraced by the people who shaped you in good and big ways is not unusual. I want my family, my pastors, my teachers, and my mentors to be proud of me: to know that their efforts were not in vain. And I want to make restitution for ways I exasperated them.
My heart is fragile and my emotions are easy to shatter. When reality strikes us in the face, we have to come to grips that the love we imagined doesn't really exist. My home church won't love me the way I loved it. It bears such striking similarity to the vast majority of my romantic endeavors that it leaves the ugliest, most bitter taste in my mouth. I can't feel comfortable there because the fire with which I burned for it was cruelly stamped out by their unimpressed aversion to my wholehearted and dedicated service. It's not their fault, I'm apparently the wrong fit and they don't want someone like me on their team.
My heart is fragile and my emotions are easy to shatter. When reality strikes us in the face, we have to come to grips that the love we imagined doesn't really exist. My home church won't love me the way I loved it. It bears such striking similarity to the vast majority of my romantic endeavors that it leaves the ugliest, most bitter taste in my mouth. I can't feel comfortable there because the fire with which I burned for it was cruelly stamped out by their unimpressed aversion to my wholehearted and dedicated service. It's not their fault, I'm apparently the wrong fit and they don't want someone like me on their team.
My Concern has Run Out
So I don't ask anymore. I could ask why they always refuse my service as a music leader, one of my strongest skills, but I don't want to hear their answer. For fear that knowing the truth might destroy me, I've decided that I'd rather not know. I don't deserve to be serving at a place that isn't begging me to stay. The vast discrepancy between the opinion of those who have recently heard me sing at the piano or direct a worship team and those who haven't is so staggering that I can only conclude that something about my persona tells people that they're not going to like what they hear. Apparently, I look a lot less capable than I am.
The truth is that I know my worth as a leader in music ministry, but I'm bad at convincing others. The fact remains that I'm damaged goods, now. I simply cannot bear to put myself in a spot so vulnerable. My life is in my music and service to the Church. I have seldom been as angry and hurt as the time a pastor told me that he didn't think my heart was really in my ministry, that it was just another gig to me. If I'd expressed my full sentiments to his accusation, his teeth would have been picked up by the street sweeper 2-1/2 years ago.
I, who once lived with reckless abandon for the passions that made my heart race, cling to the numbness and normality that keep me safe from the risk of disappointment. I'd take on the world, but I've brushed with death and its stench wafts from the very paths that my heart longs to tread. No callouses necessary, I'll keep me in a cage until my heart's a little stronger. I avoid the the pursuit of dreams, plagued by the fear of crushing disappointment. We never fully heal, do we? I'm fed up with feeling.
Trusting the Process
I pray that as time goes on, I will regain my previous boldness and that the path I've walked will help me be a blessing and a light for Christ in others' lives. Most of my bitterness that I used to battle has been replaced with indifference. I suppose that's a step in the right direction. Perhaps it's finding the right balance between recklessness and self-seclusion. Healing's a process and it needs some patience.
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