E29 | How to Heal from Rejection When Someone Doesn't Choose You | I Never Got My Why - Part 7

Why does rejection hurt so deeply?

In Part 7 of the I Never Got My Why series, Tennille shares a powerful realization from her healing journey: she was asking another person questions only God could answer.

Through the story of the woman in Mark 5, this episode explores healing after heartbreak, the pain of rejection, and the identity wounds that often leave us wondering if we are enough, lovable, or worthy of being chosen.

In this episode:
• Why heartbreak is often about more than the relationship
• The connection between rejection and self-worth
• What the woman in Mark 5 teaches about healing and identity
• How to find your worth in God instead of other people's choices

If you've ever struggled with rejection, disappointment, feeling overlooked, or questioning your value after heartbreak, this conversation will help you uncover the story beneath the story.

Transcript

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I kept asking why he could not choose me, why he could walk away, why he could let go, why I was still sitting in church grieving a relationship he had already left behind. And one day, I stopped mid-question and realized something terrifying. I was asking the wrong person there comes a point in healing where the question changes. Not because the grief disappears, not because the story suddenly makes sense, not because you wake up one morning completely healed and untouched by what happened, but because eventually the pain starts revealing something underneath itself, and that is where this episode begins. For a long time, I thought the entire question was about him. Why he left, why he couldn't stay, why the relationship collapsed after everything we had built, why I couldn't seem to move forward even when I understood what the right answer was supposed to be. But slowly, very slowly, I began realizing something harder. The why was never really only about him. Because if I'm telling the truth, part of what shattered me was not just losing him. It was what the loss seemed to confirm, that maybe I was still not enough to fully choose, and still not enough to build a future around. And that is why heartbreak can feel so much bigger than the relationship itself, because sometimes it awakens wounds that were already waiting underneath it. I don't think most women realize how often we hand other people the authority to define our worth, not intentionally. Quietly, over years, through relationships, through rejection, through comparison, through the stories we inherit, that we inherited before we were even old enough to question them. And eventually, someone leaves or disappoints us or doesn't choose us the way we hoped they would, and it feels like our entire And suddenly it feels like our entire identity collapses with the relationship. Not because the relationship was our whole life, but because it was holding meaning we didn't realize we had attached to it. Meaning about our value, meaning about our desirability, meaning about whether we were finally enough There was a woman in Mark chapter five in the Bible who had been bleeding for twelve years. Twelve years. And because of the law and customs of that time, her condition didn't only affect her physically, it affected her socially, spiritually, emotionally. She would have been considered unclean, which meant isolation, distance, limitations, constant awareness of her condition. And the text says she had suffered under many physicians and spent everything she had. Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. That line matters to me because some wounds become exhausting, not only because they hurt, but because of how long we've been carrying them, and because we have already tried so many things to make them stop. The woman hears Jesus is nearby and moves through the crowd quietly. No announcement, no speech, no demand, just a quiet reaching because she believed, "If I touch even his garments, I will be made well." I think there was something deeper. I think there was something deeply human about that. The quiet reaching, the part of us that still hopes. The part of us that still hopes healing is possible even after disappointment has made us smaller, even after exhaustion, even after years of asking why. And then comes the moment that changes everything. She touches him, and immediately Jesus feels power go out from him, and he stops. And then he asks the question, "Who touched me?" Now pause there for a second because I think most of us read that moment too quickly. There were crowds pressing around him, people touching him constantly. But this touch was different. This touch carried faith, desperation, hope, need. And the woman, realizing she could not remain hidden, comes forward trembling. And the text says she told him the whole truth. The whole truth. Not the polished version, not the spiritually accepted version, not the edited testimony. The whole truth and I think that phrase matters deeply because for a long time, I was not telling the whole truth to myself. I kept saying I wanted answers. I wanted closure, understanding, resolution. But underneath all of that was another question entirely. Am I enough to be loved fully? Am I enough to stay for? Am I enough to choose? That was the deeper wound, not just the heartbreak. Worth. And once I finally saw that, I realized something painful but freeing at the same time. I had been asking another human being to answer a question only God could answer. I was asking the wrong person. Because when your worth has always depended on being chosen by other people, every rejection feels final. Every unanswered text, every goodbye, every seat left empty beside you Feels like proof. But healing slowly teaches you something different. That your worth was never sitting in another person's hands to begin with. Not your ex's hands, not your parents' hands, not your boss's hands, not the church, not the audience, not anyone. God established your worth before another human being ever had the opportunity to affirm or reject it. And that changes the healing process entirely because now The work becomes, how do I learn to see myself the way God already does? That is a very different journey. and I think that is part of what Jesus was doing with the woman in Mark 5. He could have healed her without stopping, but he stopped, and he asked her to come forward, not to shame her, to restore her publicly, to let her speak, to let her exist visibly, to let her tell the whole truth. And then he calls her daughter Not woman, not unclean, not issue, not burden, but daughter. Identity before explanation. Belonging before performance. Worth before proof There's something I want to say carefully here. When we transition to the for what, what was the purpose of this? It's not so you never desire love again. The for what is not emotional numbness. It's not pretending rejection doesn't hurt. The for what is deeper than that. It's what God was building underneath the relationship itself. The capacity to know your worth from the inside out. The capacity to remain whole even when another human being cannot carry your expectations. The capacity to stop begging people for answers they were never qualified to give. Because when your worth has always depended on being chosen by other people, every rejection feels final Every action that's taken from not answering a text The dismissiveness It feels like proof But healing slowly teaches you something different, that your worth was never sitting in another person's hands to begin with. I think some of us have spent years asking human beings questions only God can answer. Questions like, am I lovable? Am I worthy? Am I enough? Do I matter? Will someone stay? And human beings are fragile answers. Even good people struggle with answering these questions, Which is why eventually the turning becomes less about finally getting the explanation from them and more about learning to hear what God has been seeing about you all along. That doesn't happen overnight, but it does begin. It begins quietly and slowly, one honest truth at a time Because once you realize the why was never only about the relationship or the job loss or that significant change that made you question yourself and your worth, you begin uncovering something much deeper. The story underneath the story And if you're walking through this series with me, don't forget to download the free I Never Got My Why reflection guide. It's filled with scriptures, reflection prompts, and journal questions to help you process your own story alongside each episode. You'll find a link in the show notes. And as we come to a close with this episode, come back Thursday. We are going to talk about what happens when healing begins to feel unfamiliar, when peace itself starts feeling strange because chaos became what your nervous system learned to recognize as home And as always, I want you to know, even here even now, even in the why, that you are fully seen and fully loved.