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Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely

Life is easy when you’re happy and accepted.

But what to do when those you love reject you?

Lysa TerKeurst’s Uninvited offers more than a shoulder to cry on.

It offers numerous ways to rise above it.

Who Should Read “Uninvited”? And Why?

Uninvited is both a heartfelt plea for honesty and a gentle appeal for a more personal connection to God.

In some ways, it reminds one of Brené Brown’s books, especially her early ones such as The Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly.

However, despite the universality of Univited’s message, the book feels as if exclusively addressed to believers and Christians; or, at least, in our opinion, those are the ones who’d most enjoy reading it.

About Lysa TerKeurst

Lysa TerKeurst is an American writer and the President of Proverbs 31 Ministries.

She has authored about twenty books so far, four of which have made it to the top of the New York Times bestselling list: Uninvited, The Best Yes, Unglued, and Made to Crave.

An often-featured keynote presenter and a one-time Today Show guest, TerKeurst is also a recent winner of the Champions of Faith Author Award and is considered “one of the leading voices in the Christian community.”

Find out more at https://lysaterkeurst.com/.

“Uninvited PDF Summary”

In Uninvited, Lysa TerKeurst delves deep in her personal experiences of rejection (which includes everything from being shunned and hated by a lady at the gym to being abandoned by her father) to help readers fight it and live through it while feeling loved and accepted.

As she explains honestly – unlike other too confident people – she hasn’t chosen the topic of rejection because she has mastered it or because she has overcome rejection in every way.

She has chosen it because she believes that digging into the core of who we are and exposing rejection’s deep infection is important and is the first step towards healing yourself.

Exposing, she warns her readers isn’t tidy; but it is honest, and it is good.

And, in her mind, it is the only true way to God’s embrace and His endless and unceasing Love.

“The more fully we invite God in,” she writes, “the less we will feel uninvited by others.”

Do You Still Want to Ignore Honesty?

“In the quiet of an early morning,” writes Lysa TerKeurst at the very beginning of Uninvited, “honesty finds me. It calls to me through a crack in my soul and invites the real me to come out, come out, wherever you are. Not the carefully edited edition of the me I am this year.”

“No,” she goes on, “honesty wants to speak to the least tidy version of the woman I’ve become. The one I can’t make look more alive with a few swipes of mascara and a little color on my lips.”

And then she concludes: “Honesty is a suitor with piercing vision who isn’t swayed by pretending and positioning.”

Unfortunately, we go through life losing a bit of the real us day by day; you are one person at home, another one when you enter your office and yet a third one with your friends.

Why?

Because you want to protect yourself from pain; because every part of your unconscious works in such a way that should help you adapt more easily to your environment and not the other way around; and, as days go by, you become a stranger to yourself.

Enough with that!

Time to turn to yourself and listen carefully to the words your soul speaks; by definition, honesty will never attempt to hurt you – it will always try to heal you and help you chase away the lies which make you feel bad.

Why?

Because when you’re honest – regardless of anything else – you are you.

One God, Two Fears, and Three Questions

Being Abandoned = Losing Your Identity

After telling the sad story of her childhood (“my dad fed my fears every day,” “Love was not something that graced my dad’s vocabulary”), Lysa realizes that she owes the feeling of being “the unwanted one” to a faulty interpretation of her relationship with her father.

Namely, after her dad left her and her family – not that he had been emotionally around before that – Lysa came to an earth-shattering (but obviously wrong) conclusion: “I don’t matter. I am worth nothing to my dad.”

And an even more disturbing one: “I fear I am worth nothing to God.”

“The sum of these feelings,” she concludes, “became my new identity.”

Binding Your Identity to God

If you’re anything like us and about 90% of the humans inhabiting the planet, probably that’s the way you’ll interpret any rejection: it’s not him/her – it’s me.

How do you trick your brain into thinking the truth, how do you counter the many rejections that will undoubtedly come along your way and all the unpredictability of life?

Link your identity to something permanent, something eternal, something unchanging, and something unquestionably loving and good.

God.

Here’s Lysa’s mantra which helps her in the difficult moments of her life:

I’m Yours, God.
I’m not who that guy says I am. I’m not who that girl says I am.
I’m not who social media likes and comments say I am.
I’m not who the grades, to-do lists, messes, and mess ups say I am.
I’m not who the scale says I am or the sum total of what my flaws say I am.
I’m going to stop flirting with the unstable things of this world so I can fall completely in love with You. I am loved. I am held.
I am Yours. I am forever Yours.

The Three Most Important Questions: Intimacy-Based Identity

Of course, it’s one thing to say these affirmations, and a completely another one to live them out.

How do you do that?

By developing an “intimacy-based identity,” which starts with answering three core questions:

• Is God good?
• Is God good to me?
• Do I trust God to be God?

The answer to all of these questions – and Lysa offers quite a few arguments taken straight from the Bible – is yes.

Getting Out of the Rat Race

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has spent countless hours into trying to find ways to automate processes and earn itself some free time.

Three centuries later, we can see nothing but the futility of this project: somehow, we have less free time today then we’ve ever had throughout all known human history.

In a way, as James Suzman says, we’ve become hostages to our own progress: “we’re still obsessed with growing, even when there’s not much room left to grow in.”

Lysa TerKeurst writes exactly the same: “we run at a breakneck pace to try and achieve what God simply wants us to slow down enough to receive.”

“Jesus doesn’t participate in the rat race,” she writes. “He’s into the slower rhythms of life, like abiding,
delighting, and dwelling – all words that require us to trust Him with our place and our pace.”

A nice little fable sums up why you need to slow down to understand the meaning of life:

Imagine a little girl running with a cup in her hand sloshing out all it contains. She thinks what will refill her is just ahead. Just a little farther. She presses on with sheer determination, and clenched teeth and an empty cup clutched tight.
She keeps running toward an agenda He never set and one that will never satisfy. She sees Him and holds out her cup. But she catches only a few drops as she runs by Him because she didn’t stop long enough to be filled up. Empty can’t be tempered with mere drops.

Even science backs this: stopping by to smell the roses isn’t just a cliché, but a recipe for happiness.

Ten Things You Must Remember When Rejected

As far as Lysa TerKeurst is concerned, the answer to the question “What’s a brokenhearted person to do?” is a sentence which mentions God no less than ten times:

“We must praise God, seek God, look to God, call to God, experience God, fear God, learn from God, honor God, draw near to God, and take refuge in God.”

And that’s exactly how many things she says you need to remember if you want to rise out of your own ashes when rejected.

And here there are:

#1. One rejection is not a projection of future failures.
#2. Rejection doesn’t label you; it enables you to adjust and move on.
#3. This could be an invitation to live in expectation of something else.
#4. There is usually some element of protection wrapped in every rejection.
#5. It’s good to ask the “what” questions but less helpful to ask “why.”
#6. Don’t hash, bash, or trash on the internet. Remember, the internet never forgets.
#7. There’s much more to you than the part that was rejected.
#8. What one person sees as your liability, another might see as a wonderful asset.
#9. This is a short-term setback, not a permanent condition.
#10. Don’t let this heartbreak destroy you. Let this breaking actually be the making of you. Let God use it in good ways to make you stronger and take you further.

Key Lessons from “Uninvited”

1.      The Devilish Mechanics of Rejection: How a Line Becomes a Lie
2.      The Benefits of an Intimacy-Based Identity
3.      Ten Things You Must Remember When Rejected

The Devilish Mechanics of Rejection: How a Line Becomes a Lie

“Rejection isn’t just an emotion we feel,” writes TerKeurst in the introductory chapter of her book. “It’s a message that’s sent to the core of who we are, causing us to believe lies about ourselves, others, and God.”

And how does this work?

Well, you start by connecting a trivial event from today with something harsh someone said to you ages ago; let’s say, someone hasn’t answered your Facebook message yet even though the “seen” icon is there for hours.

This reminds you of a line, say the one your ex-boyfriend dumped you with: “I don’t want you.”

The line, coupled with this new event, turns into a label: “I am not accepted.”

And, before you know it, the label “I am not accepted” evolves into the lie you wake up with and the one that destroys all of your future friendships and relationships: “I am not worthy.”

“We project the lines of rejection we heard from our past on others and hold them accountable for words they never said,” concludes TerKeurst. “And worst of all, we catch ourselves wondering if God secretly agrees with those who hurt us.”

So, in a way, rejection steals the best of who you are by reinforcing the worst of what’s been said to you.

How you should counter it: with honesty, brutal honesty.

And with honest and profound faith in God and his love towards you.

The Benefits of an Intimacy-Based Identity

In TerKeurst’s research on rejection and experience with it, she has discovered the two core fears that feed a person’s sensitivity to rejection:

• the fear of being abandoned;
• the fear of losing one’s identity.

Unfortunately, every rejection makes both of these fears too tangible and too real to be easy to overcome rejection.

However, TerKeurst sincerely believes that you can do it: the only thing you need to do so is God and a profound feeling of attachment to him.

Why?

Because when your impermanent and self-loathing identity is tied to something All-Loving and Eternal, you can remain the way you are as long as you live. And also: because then you’ll never be completely abandoned.

TerKeurst calls this “intimacy-based identity,” and she says that you can start building it by answering these three questions with a “yes”:

• Is God good?
• Is God good to me?
• Do I trust God to be God?

She offers reasons for each of these three “yeses” by quoting verses from The Bible, with which Uninvited abounds.

Read them if you need a guide to these “yeses.”

Ten Things You Must Remember When Rejected

These may be the ten most important things you need to remember from this book – so we’ll repeat them twice:

#1. One rejection is not a projection of future failures.
#2. Rejection doesn’t label you; it enables you to adjust and move on.
#3. This could be an invitation to live in expectation of something else.
#4. There is usually some element of protection wrapped in every rejection.
#5. It’s good to ask the “what” questions but less helpful to ask “why.”
#6. Don’t hash, bash, or trash on the internet. Remember, the internet never forgets.
#7. There’s much more to you than the part that was rejected.
#8. What one person sees as your liability, another might see as a wonderful asset.
#9. This is a short-term setback, not a permanent condition.
#10. Don’t let this heartbreak destroy you. Let this breaking actually be the making of you. Let God use it in good ways to make you stronger and take you further.

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“Uninvited Quotes”

Our Critical Review

“Lysa TerKeurst has an undeniable gift for sharing her heart’s struggles in ways that strengthen and equip the lives of others,” writes Chris Hodges, Senior Pastor, Church of the Highlands and author of Fresh Air and Four Cups.

And he is right: TerKeurst does this in a gentle, poetical, uplifting manner as very few authors are capable of.

However, as we said above, unless you’re Christian, TerKeurst’s message might not reach you – or at least you may not feel its mildness and warm-heartedness.

And that’s a pity.