Head to Heart Restoration Ministry
An NCCA
Certified Academic Institution
Head to Heart Restoration Ministry has been a Certified Academic Institution since November, 2008. Dr. Jones has been affiliated with the N.C.C.A. since May, 2005. He is a Licensed Clinical Pastoral Counselor—Advanced Certified.
The mission of Head to Heart Restoration Ministry is to bring emotional and spiritual wholeness to wounded and broken people through the power of Jesus Christ.
Currently, there are four counselors ministering in Round Rock, TX, a suburb of Austin. One of Head to Heart Restoration Ministry’s commitments is to raise up counselors to serve the community in and outside of the central Texas area. All of the Head to Heart counselors were students of Dr. Jones.
The CAI program within Head to Heart utilizes the NCCA courses and the APS as the foundation for training students. In addition to the NCCA courses, Dr. Jones teaches interested students prayer ministry and inner healing techniques to help counselees receive deeper healing for damaged emotions, liberty from the past, and freedom from bondages. He hopes to one day develop an inner/emotional healing training manual for counselors and ministers.
One of the most common problems counselees deal with is rejection. Rejection is the real or perceived denial of love. Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines rejection as, “the act of throwing away something as useless; casting off; refusing to accept, to disapprove.”
Rejection tells us we are unwanted, put aside, and refused. It’s a feeling of being unloved and not accepted by an individual, group, or society or even by ourselves. Rejection reminds us of our desperate need to be loved, and at the same time, we’re convinced we’re unloved. Rejection drives love from us and drives us from love. Even when someone does love us, we still feel rejected.
The Roots of Rejection
The roots of rejection are a tangled mess with four identifiable causes.
First, is fear of rejection. Rejection by itself is tough enough, put when coupled with fear of rejection it becomes even more powerful. The fear itself produces more rejection.
Second, is self-rejection. Self-rejection tells you that even you know you don’t measure up. Self-rejection often results in an intense and sometimes irrational drive to succeed.
The third root of rejection is rejecting others. You are quick to reject others before they can reject you. You are protecting yourself from the hurt of future rejection. You fear becoming open, transparent or vulnerable to others. You have a hard time trusting others.
The fourth root is the desire for rejection. You set yourself up for rejection by treating others poorly or with indifference. As a result, when rejection occurs, it reinforces your lack of self-worth and lack of identity.
Reasons for Rejection
The enemy looks for ways to make us feel and believe we are rejected. I believe he forms a strategy at conception to find an inroad for rejection. It is proven that a child in the womb is already alert to the feelings, words and actions of the mother. A mother that is filled with fear, will give birth to a baby that will be fearful. The same with rejection. It can be picked up in the womb.
Some babies are rejected in the womb because the parents believe the baby is conceived too soon after marriage, they did not want any more children, the have fear (pain of childbirth, complications in pregnancy, fear the child will have problems), the baby is the wrong sex preference, etc.
Later in life, you can pick up rejection by being a victim of abuse, peer rejection, separation and divorce, death of a loved one, and a wide range of other life issues.
Reactions to Rejection
When rejection occurs, some sort of reaction to the response is required. Forgiveness of the offending person is the only scriptural response acceptable to God. God has commanded you to forgive others.
There are many ungodly reactions to rejection: rebellion, self-pity, escapism, unhealthy guilt or shame, distrust and hardness towards God and others.
Readjustment to Rejection
Once the wounds of rejection have occurred, and you react, you seek ways to readjust to relieve the hurts and to find ways to satisfy the love needs in your life.
One of the most common readjustments is perfectionism. I believe that perfectionism is of the enemy because it is a fear of failure. God desires excellence. Excellence is the urge for success. It is the commitment to do something exceptionally well.
Other readjustments are false compassion and false responsibility, material and sexual lust, self-promotion, suppression, attention-getting behaviors and controlling others.
Remedy for Rejection
Jeremiah 30:17 For I will restore health to you, and I will heal your wounds, says the Lord, because they have called you an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no one seeks after and for whom no one cares!
God has given an absolute promise of deliverance and healing from rejection. There are certain conditions for the healing of rejection: be teachable, forgive, repent, be reconciled, stabilize in God’s love, and stabilize in human love.
The wound of rejection causes deep sorrow. Proverbs 15:13 says, “By sorrow of heart the spirit is broken (wounded).” Ask and receive God’s comfort and healing from the wounds of rejection.
You have to give God permission to dismantle the wall you have built that prevents you from allowing others (including God) into your life. Self-preservation is a prison. You can’t get out and no one can get in. You have built the prison brick by brick and it has to come down.
You also have to release forgiveness to yourself, to others and possibly to God for the rejection you have received, regardless if it is real or perceived. Each link of the chain represents a wound, a person or a time in which you were hurt by rejection. The chains have you in bondage. As long as you are carrying the chains you will never be free. Praise God, Jesus took the keys to hell, death and the grave, including your rejection. If you are holding on to the chains in your life, you are holding chains without locks and keys. You have to let the chains go to be healed and free.
Isaiah 62:2-5 NIV and MSG “The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No more will anyone call you Rejected, and your country will no more be called Ruined. You’ll be called Hephzibah (My Delight), and your land Beulah (Married), Because God delights in you and your land will be like a wedding celebration. As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”
You can be healed and delivered from rejection. The journey begins by acknowledging it and then beginning to unravel its tentacles. You are greatly loved, accepted and forgiven.
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