Grown Women Should Be Good Sports

I sent in a whole stack of devotional writings to a publication.  They said, “Allow six months for a response.”

Well, it’s been six months, and I just received a whole stack of rejection emails.

And I think back to when I had to bend down on my knees to look my little boy in the eye and say, I’m sorry your team lost, but it’s very important that you learn to be a good sport.

Because there is a crown at the end of a game –maybe not a trophy for each hand but a crown for the head of each player who practiced long in preparation and played hard and sweat profusely and took a ball to the gut and an elbow to the back.  There’s a crown for every player who put her body and soul on the field.  Bad sportsmanship is an angry hand that violently swipes the crown from every head and screams, No, only the trophy matters!  Only the trophy matters! 

A few moments after receiving my discouraging rejection notices, I got a tweet from a literary agent.  She said, “Your worth as a writer is not defined by your rejections.”

Losing doesn’t define who we are.

So I took my own advice written on this blog many a time, and I bowed my head at the computer and gave thanks in my circumstance.  Lord, thank you for these rejection notices, because I know they encourage perseverance and shape my personal maturity.  And thanks for the uplifting and timely encouragement in this little tweet. 

“…give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  (1 Thessalonians 5:18  NIV)

My dear sister, we are not defined by the rejections and losses we have suffered in this life.  That is the good news for the day.  But we are defined by how we respond to them.

Let’s practice good sportsmanship.