Anniversary
This week, I'm joining the Five Minute Friday write up. This is a community of writers who write for five minutes on a one-word prompt. This week the prompt is "the way".
This month marks the anniversary of my first rejection. After attending a writers workshop, I decided to submit a proposal for an article. I hadn’t submitted a proposal for ten years. I nervously crafted the piece, sent it to a proofreader and anxiously awaited the decision.
Days past.
A week past.
And finally, I got an email back. No.
No, they were not going to publish it. The magazine thought it was good, but it was too similar to something they would be posting in the September magazine. They thanked me for the time and asked me to resubmit.
I was devastated. I cried and cried, until finally, my husband asked, have you talked to God about this. When I finally went mustered up the courage to pray about this rejection, I heard God say, “You are a writer, you don’t need someone to tell you to be a writer, just write.”
This anniversary is important to me, not because I’ve had an onslaught of acceptance letters since, but because it was the push I needed to be brave. It’s easy to be brave when everything is going for you, but to be brave, to continue to work towards your goal when you’ve received a rejection, that is the testament of bravery.
August is the anniversary of me realizing that my dream to be a writer is one I’m willing to pursue, even when it gets tough.
God asks all of us to say yes to him. And sometimes saying yes is easy. The pieces of the journey just fit together. But other times, saying yes to God means dealing with rejection, pain, and failure. God asks for our obedience to continue saying yes.
And continuing to say yes is brave.
