Overcoming Rejection

Let’s be honest here – not many of us enjoy rejection. Granted, someone out there is thinking, Ohh! But I do! I do! Rejection just makes me try harder for what I want!

Masochist.

Now that we have the name-calling out of the way, it’s time for confessions.

Dear Mother Superior,

I am the worst hater of rejection ever. And I chose writing as a career. What can I learn from this?

- BJ

Dear B.J.,

You are an idiot.

- Mother Superior

OK, that’s not really what I needed to hear today. Because, to be honest, rejection isn’t the focus of this column.

The focus is overcoming rejection, which really can be summed up in one word: chocolate.

OK, that’s not the entire truth. The entire truth is that surviving rejection has more to do with fish than it does with chocolate. (Although I once ate an entire package of Double-Stuf Oreos® after reading a particularly heinous rejection letter).

I learned about the fish-cure on one particularly brutal writers' conference day. I’d just received a rejection from an agent who said (and I quote), “It’s not you – it’s me.”

I couldn’t believe it. What was this? Bad back-cover copy from a romance novel?

My heart was confused.

So I stalked to my room and pouted. And while I was there, I figured, Why not? I should hear from God about this. So I opened my Bible (though not my heart) and dutifully read the passage listed in my devotional for that day.

Here is what it said: “Cast the net again.”

You know the story. The disciples fished all night. They were tired. They were whiny. They were uncomfortable.

Sounds a lot like me at this moment, I thought. “God… I’m out of my comfort zone… God… rejection hurts…” Whine. Whine. Whine. Whine. Whine.

Cast the net again.

I was too tired to argue. So I dragged my tired, whiny, uncomfortable bum to the table of an agent who had told me 15 months earlier she was not accepting any new clients.

I cast the net again.

She. Said. Yes.

Here’s the moral of the story, folks. If God has told you to fish – fish. Do it all night if you have to.

Don’t stop and think long about your tired, whiny, uncomfortable bum. Because when the net comes up full of fish, it will be worth the amazing price of obedience.

Personally, I’m in my own phase of fishing right now… but I know from experience that obedience to God yields bountiful results.

So let's go forth... together... with nets on our backs and pockets full of chocolate.

****
B.J. Hamrick is a journalist, humorist, and Real Teen Faith editorest.