When Your Love Is Rejected
What do you do with unrequited love?
Have you ever opened up your heart to someone only to be rejected in the end? How does it feel to love someone without being loved back? Or how does it feel to have so much love to give away only to realize your special someone does not want to receive any of that love from you?
Perhaps one of the most painful things in the world is to love someone and not be loved in return. To desire to give so much only to have all of your gifts rejected by the one you love.
Why is it that the people who seem to offer the most love are the ones who are hurt the most? Why can’t their love ever be rewarded with sincere and fervent hearts that can love them back?
Have you ever watched some movies about unrequited love? Or better yet, have you ever watched shows where you rooted for second lead characters even if you knew they won’t end up with the main leads?
There are second lead characters in movies and television dramas that seem to offer more love than the the main leads but are often ignored or unappreciated. Even if their love is recognized, their love is never accepted nor reciprocated.
At the end of the day, however, the audience knows this doesn’t mean they’re less deserving of love. The sad fate of not being loved back doesn’t necessarily mean one is not worthy or that one is not capable of love.
Being rejected by one person doesn’t mean someone is better. It doesn’t mean you are not beautiful or dependable or charming.
But why is it that in real life, that’s just how we feel? We feel ugly and broken and worthless. We feel that when we’re rejected, it’s because something’s wrong with us.
Let us try to see things from another perspective. Being rejected is hard and painful. But let us not jump into the wrong conclusions because of it.
Have you ever considered God’s love?
God is the One who is most deserving of being loved. He is kind, patient and sincere. He always gives His all to the ones He loves. He even suffered a cruel death on the cross just to save them!
And yet how many times is His love rejected and ignored? How many times must He suffer the pain of having His love blocked and unreturned?
God knows our pain. He Himself knows how it feels to be rejected and cast away.
Through it all, however, His love still prevails. He does not yield to bitterness or despair. He does not resort to revenge or resentment.
He finds a way for His love to flow. He just loves and loves and loves. And that’s what can also make our hearts holy in the end.
Your unrequited love is not wasted because it has enriched your heart. It has made you more beautiful and you will carry the fragrance of this love wherever you may go.
“Do you know what hurts so very much? It's love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain. There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill that love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.”
― Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place
You may also want to read:
Will Our Yearning For Love Ever Go Away?
Jocelyn Soriano writes about relationships and the Catholic faith at Single Catholic Writer. She is the author of 366 Days of Compassion, To Love an Invisible God and Mend My Broken Heart.
