Do you remember the children’s story “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”? Yeah, well, the kid’s got nothing on me. This was one of those…
If you read this morning’s blog, you already know my purse was stolen yesterday. Hence, I spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon taking care of closing and replacing things. That alone would make this Mama crabby.
Add to that…my first rejection from a publisher. Grant it, my agent is going to resubmit the proposal and new chapters that were written last week for the other publishing house, but still…my first rejection and it hurts.
Top it off with some well place criticism for the novel…but ill-timed (no fault of theirs)…and, well, it’s been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
I scrubbed my kitchen and entry floor to within an inch of its life, on my hands and knees. That helped my mood – a little. Not because I like to clean the floor, quite the contrary. No, I just got a lot of tears and aggression out.
After a long soak in the tub, I am still not out of the slump. I have a couple of choices as I see it. I can wallow in self-pity and frustration for the rest of the night and drown my self in ice-cream. Or I can suck it up, put on my big girl panties, and deal with it. Ah, I think I see a grace lesson on the horizon. Before I sit down to contemplate what God’s trying to teach me, I think I’ll enjoy the ice cream first. I’ll let you know what grace lessons comes of this one. For now, I’ll settle for a sundae and a teachable spirit.
Rejections do sting, but they’re part of the territory. I have to remind myself that it isn’t personal, it’s business. That being said, ice cream sounds mighty good right now. You had a lot of things pile on you all at once. I read in James Scott Bells’ blog today on Charis Connection that God has a way of keeping us humble. He is so right. Every path to publication is different, and God has different things to teach us along the way, but I’m convinced He teaches humility and gratitude to every person who pursues publication. Rejections and critiques seem to top His list of ‘teaching tools.’ You’ve go the right attitude. Have a teachable spirit, and great things will happen.
I’m so sorry to hear of your disapointment. Your right, the thing to do is keep working in the direction God has called you. Ah, that crushed feeling…know it well. But remeber wine comes from crushed grapes, precious olive oil comes from crushed olives, spices and essential oils come from crushed plants. It seems the oil of the annointing flows from a person who has been broken and willfully submits the pieces to an all knowing God who skillfully puts them back together..in His order, therefore better than before.
Here’s to prayers heard from the threshing floor! Look up, your on your way to the new and improved you! 🙂