When you're pretty sure you are a disappointment

Kari Patterson > Devotional Thoughts > When you're pretty sure you are a disappointment
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Alone-1

I always thought the worst thing was not getting chosen. Being overlooked, left out, not being picked for the team or the party or the date.

Do you remember that happening and how bad it felt? Realizing that someone purposefully didn’t choose you, that in someone’s mind they would be better off without you even being there. I remember getting stung a couple times and rubbing the spot for quite awhile.

But it turns out there’s something much worse: Getting chosen and then it becoming glaringly obvious that you were not as expected. That you are a disappointment. That perhaps you’re kept because of mercy, pity, or dutiful obligation, but the unspoken truth is that if the whole thing was done over, they wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. You’d be out.

Perhaps you were chosen for the team but reality is you’ve never seen a minute in a game. Or, like poor Skeeter from The Help, you’re set up on a date and upon arrival Mr. Wonderful’s face is painfully clear: You’re not quite what he’d hoped for.

That is, perhaps you were chosen, but had they really known you you’d never have been chosen after all. 

Yup, this takes the cake.

This goes far beyond the surface scratch of being merely overlooked. One can easily explain that away. Perhaps they don’t know your hidden talent, or you were having a bad day, or maybe your beauty isn’t outward but if they knew your amazing personality things would be different. Being initially un-chosen is rejection at arm’s length. Not big deal.

But the second kind is another beast altogether. That is, rejection at our core. That is, rejected for who we really are. After we’ve been known. After we’ve been proven. After we’d washed off our makeup and slipped off our clothes, so to speak. Rejection that whispers, “Had I known, I never would have chosen …”

Do we wonder why divorce is so diabolical? 

To be known and then rejected is eternally worse than never being chosen in the first place.

Why the dark thoughts, you ask?

This darkness (That yes, I have felt in my brief 33 years), this sting, this ache that strips us bare and leaves us raw and oozing pain, it helps us see the glory of the gospel.

The ravaging love that revolutionizes our souls. 

Yes, it arrests our hearts to realize that “In Him, we were also chosen” (Eph. 1:11). We ARE chosen, picked, singled out, by the love of God in Christ. But this! But this is what should bring us to our knees in thanks and stand us on our feet in confidence:

“For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them…” Rom. 8:29

Known and chosen. Chosen and known. We have been chosen by God even though He knew everything we would ever do.  He knew what was under the clothes, the makeup, the masks. He knew the blunders we’d make and the limits we have.

He knows that really, we’re not that put together. 

He says, “I have known, and I have chosen.”

I don’t know who this is for, but some sister needs to know it today: You are not a disappointment to God. He has never regretted his choice in you. He has never thought, “Had I known…”

You were already known, and chosen.

So you can be free to slip down those layers we clutch fearfully in front, and be bare before Him. He already knows and loves it all. You’re not a disappointment after all. 

Oh amazing grace! {Remembering this from a few years back and God’s remarkable healing work. Thanks for reading and have a blessed day, beloved one!}

17 thoughts on “When you're pretty sure you are a disappointment”

  2. Kari, this is wonderful! To be reminded that we are chosen, we are known — His grace is amazing!!

  3. I just have to comment on my own post 🙂 … God has done so much amazing work in my heart this feels like a distant past, like another life, BUT I remember the feeling, how it was in the moment, and it hurt so bad I thought I would die. If you are feeling that way today, Jesus knows the feeling! HE was rejected. HE was a disappointment to all the people who thought He would set up an earthly kingdom and save the people from Roman oppression. Jesus knows your pain and wants you to know you are not a disappointment. Really praying today for God’s healing, comforting work in hurting hearts.

    1. Hi! I just recently found your blog and I just wanted to say thank you! It’s amazing how just when I needed certain encouragements, I found them here. Thank you for what you do! God is so good!

  7. Oh, Kari thank you, thank you for sharing from the heart! I so needed to hear this today! I struggle with this especially when leading a class or leading a small group. I tend to compare myself to other leaders and I don’t feel like I measure up to their knowledge or level of teaching and then I convince myself that if they’d known who I really was, I wouldn’t have been chosen to lead that class or small group. I’m so grateful God has chosen me in spite of my failures and shortcomings.

  8. I am a missionary living in the mountains of Mexico… This came to me at the perfect time. Wow. God is so goo!

    I wrote a blog in response to/similar to it after reading. You can read it if you want!

    Shelbigeorge.blogspot.com

  11. My disappointment concerns my son,and not myself. He is a 14 year old and plays cricket. For his club he has done very well and has achieved honours for his batting and other abilities. Yet in his school they choose players for the school team,who are way below him at club level. He at school got selected for a lower team,and consistently he is ignored by the teachers for the positions that he has proven to be worthy of at the school level.
    This affects his confidence and toe honest,made me very angry inside. How do 1rectify this? Though it hurts him it hurts me to see him unfairly treated.
    Thank you.

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