The Altar of Rejection

Rejection is something every human being will encounter. We will all know what it feels like to be overlooked, unwanted, misunderstood, excluded, or unloved. But for some, rejection is more than an occasional wound. It becomes a root—one planted so early and watered so often that we begin to mistake its fruit for our identity.

I believe some wounds can begin before we even have language to explain them. Scripture tells us that our lives matter to God even in the womb. David wrote, “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee” (Jeremiah 1:5).

My own story made me think deeply about this. I learned only a few years before my momma passed that forceps had been used during my birth. My head was swollen and appeared misaligned from the center of my face. I had no conscious memory of any of it. Yet throughout my childhood and well into adulthood, I carried a deep belief that I was somehow misshapen—that something about me was wrong.
When I eventually saw a hospital picture of myself and Momma told me what had happened, I suddenly had a picture of something I had never consciously remembered.

I cannot medically prove where every belief about myself began. But spiritually, I have come to understand my story through the root of rejection. I believe the enemy used places of trauma and later rejection to reinforce a lie about my worth.
And that brings me to an unusual picture that has stayed with me: the altar of rejection.
AltEr means to change. An AltAr is a place of sacrifice. They are different words, but together they paint a picture of what rejection can do.
Rejection seeks to alter us by building an altar within us.
Upon that altar we begin sacrificing pieces of ourselves.

I am wanted.

I have value.

I belong.

I am worthy of love.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

One painful experience may whisper the lie. Another seems to confirm it. Childhood rejection magnifies it. Abandonment waters it. Cruel words fertilize it. Eventually the root grows deep enough that we no longer say, I have experienced rejection.
We say, There must be something wrong with me.
That is the terrible work of rejection. The wound becomes confused with the identity.

The person God created whole begins living from what remains wounded. We protect ourselves. We hide. We expect people to leave. We sometimes reject before we can be rejected. The broken part becomes so familiar that we begin believing it is simply who we are.
But God knows the difference between who He created and what wounded His creation.
He knew us before rejection ever spoke our name. He knew us before another human being had the opportunity to approve or disapprove of us. Before someone decided whether we were beautiful enough, useful enough, lovable enough, or worthy enough, God knew us.
And what rejection planted does not have God’s permission to remain forever.

Jesus said:
“Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.”
—Matthew 15:13
That changes everything.

If rejection planted I am unwanted, the Father can uproot it.

If rejection planted I am defective, the Father can uproot it.

If rejection planted I will always be abandoned, the Father can uproot it.

If rejection built an altar where we sacrificed our worth, our trust, our confidence, and our ability to receive love, then that altar can come down.

God is not asking the wounded remainder of us to become better at pretending to be whole. He is bringing His truth into the places where lies have lived the longest.
“He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”
—Psalm 147:3
Some roots have been watered for decades. Some wounds have been reinforced by experience after experience. That doesn’t make the lie true. It only means the root has grown deep.
And deep roots are still roots.
They can be pulled up.
The altar of rejection does not get the final sacrifice. The enemy does not get to keep what God formed, knew, and loved.

What rejection altered, God can restore.

What rejection divided, God can make whole.

And what our heavenly Father did not plant, He can root up.