Rejection
Last week I had a disappointing day. It started off with an email from a pastor of the church I currently attend. I had gifted her one of my books, asking her assistance with getting it into the church bookstore. https://store.bookbaby.com/book/The-Shattered-Vase
One of the first ladies who read my book decided it should enter the reading list of the Methodist ladies reading club. I figured it may be a good fit for my church also.
Not so much.
I followed up with this pastor in a couple of months after meeting her and she said she had not read my book and would probably not get to read it because she was too busy.
OUCH!
But that is not all. She also said that there was a very likely chance that the book would not be featured in their bookstore because I had disclosed to her that there was a couple of curse words in it.
DOUBLE OUCH!
However, if I wanted to be a leader and promote someone else’s book I could still do that.
YIKES!!
I was getting very close to that unpardonable sin of cursing at this point.
I stepped away for a minute and prayed. Then called my boyfriend and discussed the situation with him.
Then God Reminded Me
Then God reminded me of why I included those words in my manuscript. I did it for a specific purpose-to weed out the self-righteous church goers.
I guess I had done a good job of that!
The intent of writing The Shattered Vase was to lure people who are broken and without hope onto a path of understanding and love. Most of the people who have read The Shattered Vase get that. A lot of them are church going and Holy Spirit filled, some of them are not, but they all love the book.
I was disappointed with the response of this pastor.
Then I got another rejection from a neighborhood book club. I didn’t think they would go for the book. I had visited their book club once and I knew the spirit was not right for my novel.
So I got shot down on the Christian path and also the secular path.
Determination
I could have dissolved into tears but I didn’t. I got busy instead. I got in my car and drove to Dallas to get a sales tax ID number for the books I have sold out of my home.
When I got to Dallas I could not for the life of me find the Tax office. So I dialed my knight in shining armor (better known as my boyfriend). He picked me up and took me to the tax office and then out for dinner at the Royal China restaurant.
That is when my disappointing day turned around. My fortune cookie said “Don’t give up! The beginning is the hardest part.”
It saddens me that a fortune cookie was more of a support for my ministry than the church I currently attend.
