“Will you pray with me, Pastor Mike? I want to follow Jesus.” That night, in a wood-paneled classroom of a small church in Jacksonville, Florida, I accepted Jesus as Lord of my life.

After my friend who had introduced me to the church moved away, I would catch a ride to church with Pastor Mike and his family. When they dropped me off at home later that night, I walked through the front doors feeling like a new person. But, although I was a new person thanks to the saving grace of Jesus, I was still living in an old circumstance.

“Where have you been!” my mom yelled.

“At Bible study. I told you about it before I left earlier.” “For three hours? Doing what? With who?”

“Learning about God . . . and the Bible. Pastor Mike. He wants to meet you.”

“Meet me for what? To tell me I’m a bad person for not going to their church? Heck no.

You’ve probably told them a bunch of lies about me anyway.”

“No . . . I haven’t told them anything about you. When they’ve asked about you coming to church, I’ve told them you have to work.”

“Oh, great! So now you have them thinking I don’t go to church because I’m greedy! You know what, you’re not going back there.”

My heart broke in half. I had finally found a place where I felt loved and seen, and my mom decided to take it from me for no other reason than a delusion she held.

“I don’t understand. Why? They’re nice people! I love going to church.” I started to cry as anger swelled within me.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you! You’re not going to be making me look bad. You can tell them they don’t need to pick you up anymore. That’s it.”

As she turned to walk away from me, I felt a rage churning inside me that I had never felt before. Years of physical and verbal abuse that had been stored deep within my heart boiled over into an emotional meltdown. When I reached my room and met a closed door, without even thinking I kicked it down, clean off the hinges. My mom heard the crash and came running to see what had happened.

“What did you do to my door?” she yelled. “Get out! Get out now!”

“I’m sorry! I don’t know what happened! I’m sorry. I don’t know where to go!”

“I don’t care where you go! Get out!”

It was almost 10 o’clock on a school night, and I couldn’t think clearly as she lunged toward me and grabbed my right arm. She twisted it behind my back as she pushed me to the front door and out. She slammed the door and locked it behind her.

I walked aimlessly around our neighborhood for a while with hot tears streaming down my face. My eyes burned and my head hurt as I finally made my way to my classmate Lindsey’s house and rang the doorbell. When her mom opened the door and saw the state I was in, she immediately asked me what had happened as she welcomed me inside. I told her my mom had kicked me out, and when she asked why, all I could say was the truth: “Because I went to church.”

She prepared a plate of food from the leftovers of their dinner. Since everyone was already in bed, she brought out a pillow and blanket for me and laid it on the couch.

“I’m so sorry, Nona. I . . . I don’t understand this, but we’re here to help however we can.”

“Thank you,” I said as she turned off the lights.

In the quiet darkness of the room, hopelessness swallowed me whole. How would I go to school tomorrow wearing the same clothes I wore that day? I didn’t have anything to do my hair with. I didn’t even have my book bag or school supplies. My 11-year-old mind couldn’t think past the next day, and it seemed impossible for it to be a good one. But in the midst of my pain, I remembered the first sermon I’d heard my pastor preach. It was based on Psalm 68:5: “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling.”

I pulled the blanket tight around my body and whispered into the stillness, “God. Help me.”

The apostle Paul is known as one of the greatest church planters of all time because his evangelistic efforts catalyzed the wildfire-like growth of the early church. Some scholars say he directly launched 14 churches, but when you take into account the churches that came out of those churches, you quickly realize that almost every church on earth can be traced back to his work. How strange, then, that after touching countless lives, Paul would end up near death in a Roman prison with no one in his corner.

As he sat in the squalor of his jail cell, he penned a few letters to his protégé, Timothy, a young man he had adopted as a spiritual son. The letters contained theological wisdom and practical knowledge, with the goal of helping Timothy grow as a minister. The words found in 2 Timothy 4 are particularly heartbreaking. Paul tells Timothy, “Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry” (2 Timothy 4:9–11, NIV).

Paul urgently needed Timothy’s presence. His co-laborers had all deserted him in his time of greatest need. He had no one to help him, so he wrote to the only person he knew he could count on, Timothy: “Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message” (2 Timothy 4:14–15, NIV).

Although Paul doesn’t share particulars, some Bible scholars believe that whatever Alexander did may have led to Paul’s imprisonment. Given Paul’s warning to Timothy to stay on guard against him, I believe it too. Alexander’s strong opposition to Paul’s ministry could have been the factor that led Roman guards to arrest him. Paul tells Timothy that Alexander hurt him so deeply that only God could repay him for the harm he caused. He goes on to say, “At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me . . .” (2 Timothy 4:16, NIV).

When Paul looked to his corner of the ring for the fight he was in, he found it empty. No one was there when the charges were read. No one was there to provide a character witness. Paul was entirely alone. Or was he?

“May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (2 Timothy 4:16–18, NIV)

Paul found himself in a dire circumstance, facing imminent execution (2 Timothy 4:6–8). He was rejected and abandoned by the people he had broken bread with.

He was left to die by people he had spread the good news of Jesus with. He was weak and broken in his body from the harshness of his torture.

Yet, when Paul’s corner was empty, he didn’t hold a grudge against the people who had abandoned him. Instead, Paul took heart in the knowledge that though his corner was physically empty, it was spiritually full through the power of God (2 Timothy 4:16–18).

When everyone walks away, God’s faithfulness remains.

When your child stops speaking to you, God still speaks to you. When your friends no longer check on you, God still sees you. When your job application gets denied, God still approves of you. When your significant other calls it quits, God still chooses you.

When your father says you aren’t his, God still claims you as His own.

And because of God’s consistent faithfulness in the face of people’s rejection, you can learn to do what Paul did: place your hope in God. When those closest to Paul rejected him at the height of his church-planting work, he didn’t turn inward and blame himself. Instead, he allowed the pain of rejection to be a GPS that helped him navigate to the faithfulness of God.

In the same breath that he forgave his co-laborers for abandoning him, he recognized the goodness of God. He acknowledged that it was the Lord who stood by him when everyone else disappeared. He declared the consistency of God’s character in delivering him from every evil attack and creating safety. He gave God glory in the midst of his pain because he had come to know the true nature of God.

When Jesus was betrayed by Judas and abandoned by Peter, the disciple who said he would never leave Him even if it cost him his life, he didn’t turn inward and wonder what he did wrong. Instead, he allowed what he knew about the Father to lead his thoughts upward. When Jesus found Himself overcome with sorrow in Matthew 26:39, He “fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’” In the midst of His pain, Jesus placed His trust in a Father whose character was always good, even when life didn’t feel good.

When we OPEN the gift of rejection and allow it to draw our attention to the goodness of God, hopelessness and loneliness have to bow to the hope and presence of our sovereign God. How striking that not only Paul came to know God as the One who delivered him from the lion’s mouth (2 Timothy 4:17), but David did too, giving him the courage to fight Goliath.

When Saul doubted that David could defeat Goliath, David said to him, “The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Samuel 17:37, NIV, emphasis added). David did not draw courage from military training. He didn’t draw courage from an arsenal of weapons. He didn’t draw courage from the size of Israel’s army. Like Paul, his strength came from knowing the faithfulness of God.

But how do you get to know the faithfulness of God?

As Job was grappling with the catastrophic loss of all his children and everything he had, he said, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42:5, NIV). Job’s trial drew him closer to God.

As the Jerusalem churches under James’s jurisdiction were experiencing poverty and persecution, he wrote, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2– 3, NIV). James promised their trials would draw them closer to God.

As the 12 disciples were overcome by confusion at Jesus’s revelation that He would be gone soon, He turned to them and said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, NIV). Jesus assured them that their trials would draw them closer to God.

The paradox of growing your faith is that you can’t grow your faith unless you need to grow it. Growing your faith necessitates situations and circumstances that require you to exercise it. Rejection is like a faith gym.

Just as growing physical strength requires exerting enough effort to tear muscle fibers so they can grow back stronger, growing spiritual strength requires exerting enough faith to obey God when your human inclination is to give up or get even. It requires remembering that God can work all things together for your good.

Even when it seems impossible. Even when it seems hopeless. Even when it seems futile.

When you thought things were going great, but then your love interest stops responding to your texts and calls, their rejection is like handing you a set of spiritual dumbbells.

When you invite all your neighbors to your home for a get-to-know-you potluck, but no one shows up, their rejection is like throwing you on a spiritual treadmill at a sprinter’s pace.

When you believed that award had your name on it, but the person you considered your nemesis was chosen instead, the rejection is like tying a spiritual weight belt around your waist . . . connected to a semitruck.

When rejection landed Paul in his prison cell and when rejection landed David in a field by himself, instead of allowing their confusion and pain to separate them from God, they allowed their confusion and pain to lead them into the arms of God. And they received victory.

Instead of asking, “Why did this happen to me?” train yourself to ask, “God, how do you want me to grow from this?”

When I woke up the next morning on Lindsey’s couch, I smelled bacon cooking and heard voices speaking softly in the kitchen. I got up and walked toward them to find Lindsey’s parents sipping coffee at the table.

“Good morning, Nona,” her father said. “Did you sleep okay last night?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“I’m making breakfast now and I put some clothes on the counter over there for you,” Lindsey’s mom said as she pointed to a small pile of clothes. “I had to guess your size, so I apologize if they don’t fit right.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I also put a toothbrush and toothpaste on the bathroom counter with a washcloth and soap so you can get cleaned up.”

Lindsey walked into the kitchen and looked puzzled as she saw me standing there. “Um . . . hey, Nona. What are you doing here?”

“We’re taking her to school with us this morning,” her mom answered quickly.

“Oh . . . okay. Are you eating breakfast with us too?”

“Yes. I just need to run to the bathroom and get changed. I’ll be back in a minute.”

As I walked to the bathroom, I overheard her mom trying to explain the craziness of the night before to Lindsey. When I came back out, Lindsey smiled and said, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

After breakfast, we loaded up our things to head out. As we drove near my house, I noticed my mom’s car was gone, so I asked to stop the car. I rang the doorbell and when Lee came to the door, I asked him if I could get my backpack. Once back in the car, I felt my body start to relax. My anxiety decreased the closer we got to school.

I spent three days with Lindsey’s family, and they never pressured me to go home. Since they didn’t know my mom and because the circumstances of my arrival were concerning, they simply integrated me into their family rhythms and made me feel loved. As I look back on that time, I can see the hand of God so clearly. I had thought I was wandering aimlessly around my neighborhood until I “happened” upon my classmate’s house, but I now understand that the Spirit guided me to the very place I needed to be to experience peace that night.

After getting dropped off at school by Lindsey’s mom on the third day, I was told by one of the administrators to go to the front office. When I arrived, my mom was standing there. “Where have you been?” she whisper-yelled at me.

“You told me to get out.”

“I didn’t tell you to get out! You left and didn’t tell me where you were going!”

“Huh? You told me to get out in the middle of the night!”

“I would never do that! You just need to be back home after school today. You got it?” She walked away before I could gather my thoughts enough to respond. I was stunned. Confused. Angry. Yet again, she’d blown up my world, then blamed me for it, a pattern I’d known for as long as I could remember. As I walked to class that morning, I began praying for strength to withstand the turmoil until I could move out once and for all. I asked God to help me stay focused on the big goal: going to college. I decided that I would do everything I could to get the grades needed for a full scholarship so I could move out after graduation. Rejection can become the fuel for your purpose.

By the time I entered high school, I was so focused on the vision of moving away for college that I enrolled in every Advanced Placement (AP) class the school offered. AP classes carried college credit, so every class I successfully completed translated to three credit hours of college- level coursework. While my classmates were taking art or PE for electives, I took AP Physics, AP Anatomy and Physiology, AP Chemistry, AP Spanish, AP Calculus, and more. By graduation, I had enough credits to start college as a sophomore. Not only that, but the University of Florida rewarded my high GPA and strong extracurricular involvement by giving me a full academic scholarship.

On the day I was scheduled to move away, I loaded my car and my mom’s car with all my things, and we hit the road. About twenty minutes into the drive, I looked in the rearview mirror and couldn’t see my mom driving behind me anymore. I figured she’d been caught at a red light, so I kept driving. When I arrived on campus an hour and a half later, I started unloading my car by myself. As my smiling dorm mates and their families unloaded cars and vans around me, I made multiple trips up and down four flights of stairs by myself. After two hours of hauling my things upstairs and unpacking, I called the house.

“Hello?” my mom answered.

“Mom, why aren’t you here?”

“Look, I’m not U-Haul. I’m not driving an hour and a half to move your stuff. It’s your stuff, so you move it.”

“Okay,” I said.

A mixture of exhaustion and determination filled my heart. It was after 10:00 p.m., but I decided to make the drive back to Jacksonville to get my things. When I arrived near midnight, the house was dark. I walked inside and took my mom’s car keys off the counter, then went out to her car and opened her trunk to get my things. After I moved everything from her car into my car, I removed the house key from my key ring and placed it with her car keys on the counter.

Then I let myself out for the last time.

As I drove back to campus, a passage of Scripture I had memorized over the previous school year ran through my mind: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13–14, KJV).

I didn’t know what my future held, but I knew God so intimately that I had peace in the unknown. The same God who had protected my mind and heart during my abuse was the same God who had given me a fully paid ticket out of a past that now lay behind me. I had kept my eyes on the prize of college for years, and as the dark stretch of road lay in front of me, I smiled at the realization that the prize wasn’t that I was going to college for free. The prize was that I was going to college free in Jesus.

NONA JONES is a bestselling author, international speaker, global business executive and ESSENCE Magazine Under 40 Women to Watch honoree.