How God Heals Rejection

The literary agent spoke to my heart during his presentation. “I am like ‘dad’ to my clients. I give them advice and direction.” Being a fatherless child, that kind of working relationship appealed to me, so I was anxious to show the agent my most recent book project after his seminar. In my opinion, the proposal was polished, especially after hiring a professional editor to comb through the three sample chapters.

However, instead of glowing praise over my work, the agent found fault with the book title, chapter names and my less than average e-mail list. Because my platform was not deemed large enough, he did not accept the manuscript or desire to read it. All my writing awards seemed to flutter out the window.

I was rejected by “dad!”

The truth is, I felt push back from the Holy Spirit prior to this meeting. In the past, I’ve worked with another literary agent for many years, who just last year, said I was on the verge of traditional publishing.  I should have sent the proposal to him, but didn’t, because I wanted to see what someone else thought.  It was a need for approval. However, I felt like God tried to warn me, “This is not your guy,” and didn’t listen.

Why do I tell you this story?

It’s because we will face many rejections in life from people we deem to be father figures. My scenario was benign compared to the heart-wrenching testimonies I hear regularly about broken father-daughter relationships.

Stepfathers who are abusive.

Biological fathers who are alcoholics.

Or my story. Dads who die well before their time, leaving a daughter searching for a father figure in all the wrong places.

If you’ve been let down by your earthly father, please know you have a Heavenly Father who loves you and will always be there for you.

In Psalm 68:5 it promises God is “A Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.”

Matthew 7:11 says, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Our Father in heaven knows what we need before we do. He understands the desires of our heart, and in my case, I know he can open traditional publishing doors that I could never pry open on my own.

Whatever our scenario, our Abba Father asks that we persevere and trust him with our lives. We need to listen to the small still voice when we receive Fatherly counsel.  We should be more aware of his presence in our lives and make spending time with him a priority.

And most importantly, we need to know God, the Father, reaches out to us with an everlasting love beyond any human capacity to love.

Where would we be without God’s heavenly love? When this world rejects us, he is always there to receive us. His door never closes on his beloved sons and daughters.