00:00You know, when I was a kid, I liked being around the adults. I wanted to be near
00:07them. I wanted to go where they were going and I wanted to be part of
00:12whatever was about to happen. A lot of the time I thought I was going with them.
00:19Then they would leave and I would realize that I was staying behind. Not
00:27always in the best way. The times that I remember are the times when they'd say
00:32hey, go and get this or go and do that and then I would come back, you know, with a
00:38good heart. I was trying to please them so I would go and do something they asked
00:41me to do and find out that they were just using that to trick me and they'd be
00:48gone and I'd be left there crying and upset. And that disappointment hit me
00:55hard. It happened enough that it changed the way I acted. I started moving closer
01:02when I saw the adults getting ready to go somewhere. Not because I trusted I was
01:07included, but because I no longer trusted that I would be. And I learned to hope
01:13with caution. I learned to brace myself before anything even happened. And some
01:21people might be hearing this right now and think that's nothing. Sounds small. And
01:27it's not small when you're a child. A child feels those moments deeply. A child
01:34does not have to understand pain in order to be shaped by it. Something can happen
01:40again and again. And before long, it begins teaching the heart what to expect. It
01:47begins forming quiet beliefs. Now you start thinking things like maybe I'm not the
01:55one people bring with them. Maybe I'm not the one who gets included. Maybe I should
02:02not assume too much. Maybe I should stay close but not believe too hard. And a lot of
02:13grown people are still living with patterns that started in moments just
02:18like that. I'm 50 years old. I'm still thinking back on those things and how
02:23they've impacted me as a person. And you know, the setting changes and your age
02:29changes. The responsibilities change. But that wound, that wound does not change. It
02:38follows you into friendships. It follows you into your relationships. It follows you
02:45into your work life. And it follows you into church. It'll follow you into every room where
02:53you want to feel chosen, wanted, and safe. And then you learn how to smile while still
03:01preparing for disappointment. You know, you learn how to be present while holding something back.
03:07And you learn how to care and guard yourself at the same time. Now that kind of
03:15pain reaches deeper than people realize. It's not just about being left out of one
03:21moment. It's about what repeated disappointment starts saying to the soul. It
03:37maybe you're the one who watches other people move forward while you stand still. And this is
03:44what pain does when it's not healed. It does not stay in the past. It starts trying to explain
03:52the future. Now I want to explain that this is where faith matters. If you do not let God speak
04:02to those old injuries, those injuries will start speaking for God. You start expecting from heaven,
04:10what you experienced from people. You start wondering whether God is going to do the same
04:17thing. You start thinking maybe he will bless others and forget you. Maybe he will answer others
04:24and pass by your life. Maybe you are close enough to see good things happen, but not close enough to
04:33be
04:34brought into them. And that is a bunch of crap. It's a terrible lie. And it breaks people from the
04:43inside.
04:44You see, God is not like the people who disappointed you. He's not careless with your heart. He's not
04:53distracted by more interesting people. He's not warm one day and absent the next. And he does not overlook
05:02the wound because it seems too ordinary to matter. He does not forget the child you were. He does not
05:11miss the
05:12adult you have become. He sees the whole story. He sees the moments that formed your fear. He sees the
05:21times you kept
05:22your face steady while your heart dropped. He sees the way caution settled into places where trust should have lived.
05:34And the beautiful thing is that he does not only see it. He understands it. God knows the wounds that
05:43never got a
05:44proper funeral. He knows the pain that was never talked about correctly. He knows the hurt that looks small from
05:54the
05:54outside. But you know what? It landed deep inside of you. He knows why certain things still affect you.
06:03He knows why being left out can hit you harder than it seems like it should. He knows why rejection
06:12can wake up
06:13something old. And he knows why silence, silence can feel dangerous. He knows what happened to you without
06:23needing you to make it sound dramatic enough to matter. And that's part of the tenderness of God. He does
06:32not require you to
06:33prove your pain before he cares about it. And because he sees things clearly. He heals truthfully. He does not
06:44heal by
06:44pretending it did not hurt. He heals by separating your identity from what hurt you. He begins teaching you that
06:53what
06:54what happened to you was real. But it was never meant to become your identity. You are not the person
07:02who is always left
07:03behind. You're not the one who never gets chosen. You are not living under a permanent sentence of exclusion.
07:15Those were experiences. They were not definitions. Somebody listening to me right now needs to hear this.
07:25Because you've been interpreting your worth through other people's behavior for a long time. You've been measuring your
07:33value by who stayed, who left, who called, who forgot, who invited, and who did not. That is a miserable
07:44way to live. Because people are inconsistent. Human beings are limited. They can love you and still fail you. They
07:56can care about you and still wound you. They can mean well and still not see what they are doing
08:04to you. But God,
08:07well, God is not limited by the way people are limited. His love is not unstable. His presence not fragile.
08:19His
08:19faithfulness does not fade because your emotions are heavy. He does not walk away from wounded hearts. He moves
08:28toward them. You know, if you want to think about this, that is why Jesus matters so much in this
08:37conversation. Because Jesus is not harsh with hurt people. He does not shame the weary. He does not lecture the
08:47burden for being burden for being burdened. He invites people close. He speaks to the tired. He receives the
08:56ones carrying sorrow. And he knows how to touch what has been bruised without crushing it. He knows how to
09:05rebuild
09:05trust slowly. And he knows how to restore dignity to places that were formed by disappointment. Now, some of you
09:16do not
09:17need another clever message today. I know that. You need permission to bring your real pain to God. You need
09:26permission to stop pretending those early moments did not matter. You need permission to admit that some old
09:33disappointments still echo in your reactions, still shape your expectations, and still influence how you are
09:42moving through life. There is no healing in denial. Healing begins when truth is brought to the presence of
09:52Jesus Christ. So, bring to him the part of your life that is hurting. Bring to him the memories, the
10:01moments you
10:02still remember, the sadness you never fully processed, the fear that people will leave, the guardedness, the habit of
10:14expecting less, so it hurts less. Bring in the whole thing, not the polished version, the real version. Then let
10:25God tell you the
10:26truth of truth about who you are. You are not defined by who failed to include you. You are not
10:34less because
10:34someone else was careless. You are not forgotten. You are not unseen. You are not standing outside the reach of
10:44God's love. Now that truth can begin to change a person. When it gets down into your heart, you stop
10:52reading every delay as
10:53rejection. You stop assuming every door closed is proof that you do not matter. You stop letting old
11:03disappointment narrate every new situation. And you begin to stand on something stronger than memory. You begin to
11:11stand on the character of God. And that changes how you live. You become less controlled by old fear. You
11:20become less
11:21ruled by the need to predict disappointment before it comes. You become freer to love without without the
11:30feeling like you must protect every inch of yourself. You become steadier because your worth is no longer
11:37hanging on human behavior. You start learning that other people's failures, well, other people's failures may have
11:47affected you, but they do not own you. Maybe that is the word today. What affected you does not own
11:59you. What hurt you does
12:02not name you. What shaped you does not have final authority over you. God does. So lift your head. Yes,
12:13there were moments that
12:14wounded you. And yes, there were people who should have done better. And yes, there were times you were left
12:23behind. And it hurt more than anyone knew. But that is not the end of your story. God was there
12:32then and he is here now.
12:35He has seen every disappointment. He has kept count of every tear. He has never once mistaken
12:44your value. And if you let him, he can take the place of what, of what has built up in
12:53you that learned to expect hurt and turn it into a place where trust begins to live again. He can
13:02take the place that learned to shrink.
13:04and teach it how to breathe. He can take the part of you that keeps waiting to be passed over
13:11and reminded that in Christ, you were never abandoned, never ignored, and never outside his care. You may have been
13:25left behind by people, but you were never left behind by God.
13:35My name is Douglas van der Graaf and I believe in Jesus Christ. God bless every single one of you.
13:45Every single one. Bye bye.
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