How Jesus is Smashing My Rejections

Hey friends! I know I’ve been saying this good ol’ Love, From Here will be back into a regular routine soon… and then it isn’t … but I think I’ve finally turned a few corners and let go of a few commitments that will allow me to continue writing and encouraging your hearts. Thank you so much for your patience and your consistent encouragement, for sharing and for praying! More love and more news to come…

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“You can’t sit with us!”

It’s hard not to feel a little guilty leap of heart happy when Regina George, the Queen of Rejecting Others gets rejected by her own hive of bees at lunch. If you haven’t seen Mean Girls, just know that this is the moment when the meanest of the Mean Girls gets a taste of her own medicine.

When someone else is getting rejected, let’s be honest, we can feel a mix of emotions. If we feel the rejection is deserved, maybe we’re okay with it. But I don’t think too many of us feel overwhelmingly happy when rejection points its unpleasant finger in our direction and says Nope, not you.

Lately I’ve been experiencing a new type of rejection that I think I was probably so afraid of I didn’t even want to try, for fear of rejection.

While *not* being particularly busy writing in this neck of the woods, I’ve still been doing some writing, including working and reworking and thinking and rethinking a picture book and then wording and rewording a picture book, tentatively called She Curtsied for the Queen. 

I won’t outline the story for you here (as I hope you’ll get to read a lovely, fully-illustrated and well-edited version of it someday) but I’ll tell you it’s one of those things that arrived by surprise, and I feel like there’s a lesson for me here, about recognizing a gift of God as something we ought to properly steward, even when that looks hard and it looks like potential rejection.

Two agents thus far have come back with this exactly reply, truly almost word-for-word:

“I’m sorry to say I don’t feel I’m connecting wholeheartedly with your writing, despite its many charms.”

(One used that sentence with “I” and the other with “We”… seriously that was the only difference. Even though it’s polite, it’s still rejection.

And that ‘R” word is the thing you hear from so many writers — that the pile of rejection letters is rather long before anybody gets anywhere.

So when this little picture book’s second rejection hit my inbox yesterday, I took a deep breath and decided to smile and text a friend these words:

“She Curtsied for the Queen got its second rejection letter today! I’m two rejections closer to finding a literary agent who wants to publish it, right? 😁🤓”

And I’ve decided that’s exactly what I am choosing to believe. 

Here’s why.

If God puts something in your heart that you know you’re supposed to do, the outcome really doesn’t matter. Truly, it just doesn’t. If this baby never gets off the ground… if this airplane never takes flight… I will still know two very important things:

1. God has asked me to do something, and He can make a way where no way seems possible.

2. My responsibility can be summed up with one word: Faithfulness.

Whether we are excluded from the table at lunch or turned down for the dream job or those 1,200 words I’ve read 1,200 times get turned down for the 45th time, Jesus is the Rock that makes every outcome secondary.

You are known, seen and loved. You are Beloved and you matter.

I am known, seen and loved. I am Beloved and I matter.

Jesus knows us, sees us, and loves us. We will be rejected by the world from time to time (and a great lack of rejection could be an indication that we are going with the flow a bit more than we should!)

Winston Churchill said, “Success if not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.”

So if you’re experiencing rejection because your art doesn’t connect with the critics, or if you’re experiencing rejection because your faith doesn’t line up with everyone else’s comfortable illusions of Jesus… take heart, friend. 

Have courage to continue walking the faithful walk that consistently says “Yes” to Jesus, regardless of how the rest of the world will look at you.

You may find out the best friends you’ll ever have in this world were sitting at a different table all along.

xCC