Tag: disappointment

Death, Taxes, and Setbacks

By Ife J. Ibitayo

Benjamin Franklin famously claimed there are only two certainties in life—death and taxes. But I’d like to posit one more: setbacks. And put simply, setbacks suck. They suck the joy out of our day, the wind out of our sails, and the life out of our bodies. When our company lays us off or our girlfriend suggests we “take a break” or our long-awaited callback never comes, we can be driven to despair. With tears streaming down our faces, we may ask, “God, where are you?”

Death

My most recent setback made me think of the story of Lazarus. This man was one of Jesus’ closest friends when He walked here on this earth. But when his sisters, Mary and Martha, told Him “the one whom He loved was sick” (John 11:3), He waited, He lingered, and He delayed. By the time He arrived on the scene, the man was already dead.

Martha confronted Jesus and cried, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” In response, Jesus said, “Your brother will rise again.” And Martha replied, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (John 11:21-24). In other words, “Eventually, You will make this right.”

God tells us that He is in control. He was at the beginning, and He knows the ending. And Romans 8:28 says that “all things work together for the good of those who love Him.” But often it can be all too tempting to hedge this promise with the word “eventually”.

Taxes

It’s kind of like when the IRS takes too much money out of our paycheck so they make it up to us in our tax return the following year. Similarly, some of us might believe God has written us an eternal IOU–to be paid after we die. Maybe after this life, in the sum balance of things, we will appreciate this point of pain. But at this moment, it feels like God has forgotten that we’re still among the living.

But Jesus challenged Martha to enter into an even deeper level of faith by telling her “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). Then He asked her to roll away the stone where Lazarus’s body was laid. In other words, He was asking her to have faith not just for the ending somewhere out there but also for the middle right here and now.

Life Beyond Setbacks

God is a God of detail. The Old Testament is full of chapter upon chapter detailing the minutia of God’s dwelling places here on earth, the garments of His earthly priests, and the hundreds of ceremonial laws God had in place for the Jewish people. And this detail extends to us. When Jesus said that “even the very hairs of our heads are all numbered,” (Matthew 10:30), He was not pointing out an OCD fixation of the godhead. He was demonstrating that God cares about the details even we tend to overlook.

The same applies to God’s plans for our lives. God told the prophet Jeremiah, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). God knew about that bombed interview, accounted for that failed exam, and prepared for that missed flight long before we even existed. Our moments of misfortune cannot negate the unfailing promises God has in store for us, or else He’d cease to be God.

Remind, Rely, and Rejoice

So, what do we do in the midst of setbacks? We remind, rely, and rejoice.

First, we remind ourselves of God’s faithfulness in the past because we will forget. Our brains have a well-known tendency to deeply imprint negative experiences and neglect positive ones called negativity bias. Therefore, we must actively work to call to mind those moments in the past when God came through for us.

Secondly, we must rely on God to guide us past our setbacks. One of my favorite verses in all of Scripture comes from the book of 1 Kings. In the middle of a war between the Israelites and a fierce rival of theirs at that time called the Arameans, God said, “Because the Arameans think the Lord is a god of the hills and not of the valleys, I will deliver all this great army into your hand” (1 Kings 20:28). Sometimes we fall into this same fallacy. We claim God’s provision in our triumphs but we neglect His grace in our setbacks. God is with us both on the hills and in the valleys.

And lastly, but possibly most important of all, we must rejoice during our difficulties. The gospel singer Marvin Sapp has a song called “Praise Him in Advance” that begins with these words:

I’ve had my share of ups and downs,

Times when there was no one around,

God came and spoke these words to me,

Praise will confuse the enemy.

It confuses the enemy because most of us tend to base our happiness on our present circumstances. If times are good, we praise God, but when they’re bad, we doubt Him. But thanksgiving has the power to turn our focus from our problems and our pain to God’s power and God’s plan.

Conclusion

Setbacks may be inevitable but so is the Lord’s provision. The Word says, “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand” (Psalm 37:23-24). Our heavenly Father gives us permission to admit we may not be quite perfect yet. We can confidently trip our way through life because He’s holding us up. He’s been holding our hand from the day we were born, and He will continue to do so until the day we die.

“The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
(Deuteronomy 31:8)

Upwork Didn’t Work

By Ife J. Ibitayo

“That’s great and all,” he said, waving his hand in the air as if he was dispelling a bad odor. “But I’ve been in the comic book industry a long time, and there are three things people need.”

I was sitting across from a man I’ll call Ahmed who I’d been talking to about my vision of starting a company in the comic book industry. Fingering his palm with each idea he listed, Ahmed said, “One, they access to money because well…” And I nodded along, not needing him to explain why “starving artists” needed more cash.

“Two,” he continued, “they need access to publishers. Three, they need access to one another.” And he went on to describe how easy it was for him as an industry insider to find an illustrator for one of his projects but how difficult it was for everyone else. And something of that last idea remained with me as I struggled to find an illustrator for my own comic book project.

Working through Upwork

February had already rolled around, and I was beginning to grow discouraged. But I created an Upwork account, published a job post, and waited for the applications to start flowing in.

Within a few weeks, I’d received a number of proposals, and most of them were underwhelming. I ran into the same issues I’d encountered on Instagram, illustrators without the right style, the right experience, or the right attention to detail (you’d be amazed how many applicants apply to jobs without reading the job description!).

But there were two promising leads. The first was from a man I’ll call James. Talking to him felt like interacting with an alternate reality version of myself. He was a fellow engineer who’d quit his job to pursue his dream of telling “meaning-filled” stories. We even graduated from the same university within a couple years of each other!

The first sample I ever received for Let My People Ball.
Source: Ife J. Ibitayo.

Our chemistry was palpable, and the process of obtaining a sample page from him was seamless. But when I saw the final result, I was underwhelmed. The page was beautifully colored, but it just did not fit my vision for my comic book. So with much regret, I asked if I could reach out to him as a potential colorist and kept on searching.

The second artist, who I’ll call Alejandro, was the opposite. The quality of his drawings were unmistakable, but his sample page was simply confusing. I held up my script, compared it to his drawing, and struggled to reconcile the two. So, with great disappointment, I let him go as well.

Let My People Ball Sample 2
The second sample I received for Let My People Ball. Even today, I can’t quite make sense of everything going on in each of these scenes. Source: Ife J. Ibitayo.

Conclusion

So after burning a month of time and a molehill of cash, Upwork hadn’t worked for me. And I was beginning to doubt whether or not I’d be able to make this comic book vision of mine into a reality any time soon.

An Eternity on Instagram

By Ife J. Ibitayo

Tobi had promised me it’d be easy. Log on to Instagram. Spend a few hours scrolling through posts until you find a handful of illustrators you like. Fire off some DMs. And when one finally responds, you have yourself a comic book artist. But the reality was not nearly as seamless as he made it sound.

The hours crawled by as I tried every hashtag I could muster to find the right artist to partner with. #christiancomicbookartist #christianillustration #historicalgraphicnovels #helpme

If it wasn’t one problem, it would be another. They wouldn’t possess the right style. Or they wouldn’t accept commissions. Or they had experience with every medium under the sun except comic books. And if ever the stars aligned so that all of these previous boxes were actually checked off, they’d ghost me like the Phantom of the Opera.

Instagram Comic Artist Scrolling Session
A typical afternoon Instagram scrolling session.
Source: Instagram; Credit: Ife J. Ibitayo

The Coup de Grace for Instagram

I remember one particularly discouraging interaction I had with a fellow I’ll call Matthew. On one of my seemingly endless Instagram scrolling sessions, I stumbled across his artwork, and I instantly felt a connection. He’d drawn a scene of David transitioning from meager shepherd boy to powerful warrior king. It was vibrant and colorful comic book style with clear Christian undertones. Then I clicked on to his Instagram page and found an up-to-date website with contact information. And when I filled out the form, he responded within twenty-four hours.

I felt like I had just won the lottery! We set up a phone call and bonded over a shared vision. Then I sent him a non-disclosure agreement and payment terms, excited to embark on a new journey together in 2023. But he vanished like smoke. Weeks passed, and my emails remained unanswered. It was like calling out into the void. I was back to square one.

Conclusion

Entering the new year empty handed, I knew I’d have to change tactics. Social media wasn’t the answer for me, but I was praying something else would be.

While attending LA Comic Con the previous month, I’d spent a few minutes chatting with an amazing independent comic book creator. He was a writer, like me, without an ounce of drawing capability in his body. And he practically gushed over his experience forming a team of artists to work with using an online freelance marketplace called Upwork. So I decided that that would be my next pit stop.

My first, but definitely not my last, trip to LA Comic Con.

Divine Promises and Hellish Realities

By Ife J. Ibitayo

“‘Go from your country, your people, and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation…I will make your name great…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you’” (Genes 12:1-4). God made Abraham this promise when he was 75 years old. If I were an old man with no offspring and no land, I think I would have taken God up on His offer too. In a few years, I’d be dead, and by then I’d birth a nation, enter the Biblical Hall of Fame, and bless the world. But God failed to tell Abraham he’d wait twenty-five years for his son to be born (Genesis 21:5) and be homeless for the rest of his life (Hebrews 11:9). If only that had been included in the disclaimer before Abraham signed the rest of his life away.

And this wasn’t a one-off oversight either. God didn’t clue Joseph into the years of hardship that awaited him before his brothers finally bowed before him. God neglected to tell Moses that by abandoning his regal palace in Egypt, he’d wind up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, twice! And David did not simply topple Goliath and ascend the throne. Two long decades in caves, backwater towns, and a foreign country awaited the shepherd boy before he finally claimed what was rightly his.

Viewing all these cases together, a disturbing pattern emerges of divine promises tempered by hellish realities. Could there be any reason for this painful dichotomy?

Divine Promises

Just like any good parent, God is intimately familiar with His children. He knows what makes us tick, what inspires us, and what worries us. If God told us (like He did Paul), “I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake,” (Acts 9:16), He wouldn’t have to waste His breath showing any of us the exit.

Church planter Tom Bennardo describes God’s selective revelation like this: “The mental image God bestows graciously draws us into privileged participation in a journey we won’t regret when it’s done, but one that we might not have been willing to enter if we had known the entire plan in advance.” Marriage, children, college, and a host of other critical life choices brim with promise. Yet they’re simultaneously filled with tears. Tremendous highs and incredible lows are tandem twins in this life. But because of a psychological phenomenon known as loss aversion, we take losses much harder than we appreciate gains. This is one key reason why God is willing to show us the glory ahead of time, but He lets the difficulties surprise us.

Hellish Realities

Further, no matter how we choose to live our life, pain is all but guaranteed. We are resident aliens in a fallen world. So broken bones and shattered dreams shouldn’t surprise us here on planet earth. Yet they do! And as they accumulate, discouragement will rear its ugly head like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. That is why God gives us promises.

“When God made His promise to Abraham, He wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear so that we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged” (Hebrews 6:13, 17, 18). Promises give us something to hold on to as we wait. Every “also ran”, romantic breakup, and failed business venture is not the end of the line, but a link on the unbroken chain to the vision God has so firmly implanted on our hearts.

Conclusion

Christian Comedian Yvonne Orji wrote a book titled Bamboozled by Jesus: How God Tricked Me into the Life of My Dreams. And I agree with the tongue in cheek sentiment of her pithy work. Like a master of legerdemain, sometimes it feels like God shows us one thing but slips us something else. But every good and perfect gift comes from God (James 1:17). And this includes both the vision we see and the present we receive from His hand.

“’You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.’”

(Matthew 7:9-11)

Setbacks to Glory

By Ife J. Ibitayo

You know that feeling when you’ve been working toward something for months? You’ve been trusting, fasting, praying for it to come through. But that hopeful interview turns into a hopeless disappointment. You “shot your shot,” and you missed.

I’ve nearly drowned in that feeling this past week, a toxic blend of disappointment, bewilderment, and a dash of self-pity. If “all things truly work out for the good of those who love God” (Romans 8:28), what good can be found in yet another setback?

Perseverance

First, it develops perseverance. Two years ago, I shared a little bit about my writing journey. Striving to become a professional writer has been one of the greatest challenges of my life. Much to my father’s chagrin, the only documents I have framed on my wall are not from any of my graduations but from my first publications. But that is because of the power of perseverance. When year after year you receive rejection after rejection, you can either grow bitter or get better.

The Word says, “Let us not grow weary of well doing, for in due season we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). From Oprah Winfrey to Winston Churchill to Michael Jordan, many of the giants of this past century did not cruise through life on easy mode. But rather, their hard work, determination, and “never-give-up” attitudes led to the acclaim they’ve now rightly earned.

Humility

Secondly, it inculcates humility. Joseph in the Bible has one of the greatest “riches to rags back to riches again” stories of all time. He began his life as a pampered trust fund baby who dreamed that he’d someday rule over the rest of his family. And he had to make sure they all knew it too!

But that “wise” decision led to thirteen years of slavery and imprisonment. The end of Joseph’s time in prison was punctuated by another dream. And because of it, he was led into the royal halls of the preeminent empire of his time to speak to the most powerful figure in the world. And when Pharaoh, king of Egypt, asked Joseph to interpret the strange dream he had, Joseph’s first words were, “‘I cannot. But God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires’” (Genesis 41:16).

Setbacks are often the only force powerful enough to remind us of our limitations. In American culture, we are taught from day one that we are special. Our straight A’s, scholarships, raises, and promotions all attest to our singular genius.

But when we are passed over, delayed, or rejected, we’re forced to look within and take stock of our weaknesses. And we’re reminded of the grace of God that has carried us thus far.

Conclusion

When naming this article, I realized that some might misunderstand “Setbacks to Glory” as obstacles that impede our journey to greatness. But it’s quite the opposite. Setbacks are rungs on the ladder of distinction. By callousing our fingers and deflating our egos, setbacks accelerate us toward success. The question is: Will we let them set us off course from our God-given vision or set us up for the triumph to come?

“We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that sufferings produce perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

(Romans 5:3-4)

I Thank God for His Promises (I Thank God For… Pt. 2)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

I still remember my first crush. She was a gorgeous Asian beauty, and I was a bumbling fifth grader. In my brilliant elementary school wisdom, I had to share my secret with somebody. So I swore one of my closest friends to secrecy and divulged the name of my crush to him. The very next day, like clockwork, everyone at school knew. My crush avoided me, and a bully in my class pranked me mercilessly for the next several months. From that unhappy experience I learned the life lesson that no one can be trusted to keep their promises.

And we’ve all been there. Whether it be our spouse, parent, or coworker, someone we trusted has betrayed our trust. A pop singer once sang: “How can I learn how to trust again? How can I learn how to trust? How can I learn how to love again when everything turns to dust?” When trust is so easily broken and so hard to restore, is anyone in the world truly worthy of it?

God is Not a Man

Ironically, out of the mouth of a pagan soothsayer named Balaam, the LORD says, “‘God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill’” (Numbers 23:19)? God Himself claims to be the one being in all of existence who will never let us down. He will never default on His promises. He will never fail to come through.

But there can often feel like there is a divide between the God we hope for and the God we know. There’s the God who saved our loved one from cancer, restored our failing marriage, and delivered our prodigal child. But that’s not the God we know. We’ve seen the sorrow of daily living which can sometimes make even the deepest Biblical promises feel trite and unreliable.

Yet, every week this year I reread Romans 8:32, which says, “Since God did not spare even His own Son but gave Him up for us all, won’t He also give us everything else?” From the eternal vantage point of our everlasting salvation, etched on our hearts through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, I’ve found the comfort to put my trust in God. For only through Him are trouble, hardship, persecution, hunger, need, and danger powerless to separate me from the love of God (Romans 8:35). And so I can take God at His word when He promises, “‘Though the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, My steadfast love shall never leave you, and My covenant of peace shall never be removed,’ says the LORD, who has compassion on you” (Isaiah 54:10).

Conclusion

A mantra I repeat probably on a weekly basis is “trust is the hardest part.” I don’t trust readily, and I don’t trust easily. But when Christ extends His nail-pierced palms to me, I know if there is any place in the world I can rest the weight of my world, it is there and there alone.

“No word from God will ever fail.”
(Luke 1:37)

Never Fail

By Ife J. Ibitayo

I spent some time today looking through my high school yearbook with my little brother. I couldn’t help but grin as I saw pictures of my high school self. Apparently, a decade later, I still look the same. I don’t know whether that’s a compliment to my youth or an insult to my maturity! But as I flipped through the yearbook’s pages, my smile dimmed when I arrived at the photo of the leaders for our Christian club because there was one person missing from it.

I still remember the day when our treasurer—who I’ll call Barry—knocked on my dorm room. It was late at night, and he had a pile of books in his hands. He told me about how he’d been struggling with his faith, and he wanted to read through some of these resources with me as he attempted to splice together the crumbling remnants of his Christianity. I was club president and pastor at the time, but I was also struggling to balance the load of club activities and classes with the minimum free time I thought I needed for myself. So I blew him off, and within the next couple weeks, we no longer had a treasurer.

I Failed

I was reminded of Peter in the Gospels. When Jesus said all of His disciples would desert Him, Peter excluded himself from that group. When Jesus said Peter would deny Him three times, Peter effectively called Jesus a liar. He promised he’d suffer to the death before he denied his Lord and Savior (Matthew 26:31-35). But within a few short hours, all of Jesus’ disciples deserted Him and Peter denied Him just as He had said.

Yet none of this was a surprise to Jesus because God knows our frailties better than we do. He knows when we’ll snap at our spouse or disappoint our children. He even knows when we’ll fail the people who need us the most in their hour of need.

What I find most comforting about Jesus’ prophecy is that right after He tells the disciples they will desert Him, He says, “‘After I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee (Matthew 26:32).’” In other words, Jesus had already baked their failure into His plan. When His followers fell, He rose. When they stumbled, He went on ahead, both to catch them and to prepare the way.

He Never Does

A few years later, I saw Barry again in college. He had reestablished his faith, and he was doing well academically and spiritually. Even though the shame of my failure still burns within me, I’m grateful that I learned a valuable lesson. I will continue to fall short of the perfect standard of love I strive to live up to; however, my God never will. And He can redeem even my greatest failures for my good and for His glory.

“None of the good promises the LORD had made to the house of Israel failed. Everything was fulfilled.”

(Joshua 21:45)

A Black Son’s Juneteenth

By Ife J. Ibitayo

I’ve been black ever since I was born. This may be obvious to you, but it wasn’t to me. I was born in the suburbs of deeply-black Detroit. Then I moved to racially diverse San Jose. Then I wrapped up my childhood in Mission, Texas, which is 80% Hispanic. I never experienced brazen racism or saw Confederate flag-waving white supremacists. Microaggressions and “can I touch your hair?” were the extent of the indignities I lived through.

So I never understood my Dad’s rules: If you wear a hoodie, the hood must be down. If you’re wearing a fitted, it must face forward. Never pocket anything in the grocery store even if you intend to pay for it. And always keep your receipts.  No Kobe earrings for my older brother. No Iverson cornrows for me. And in the midst of these perplexing rules, I remained relatively cocooned from the complex web of racial interactions that tangled around me.

Divided

But then Michael Brown—a teenager less than a year older than me—was shot in Ferguson, Missouri. And less than two years later, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. With these jarring cognitive blows, I finally began to realize the United States of America was not as united as I once believed. And I began to understand my dad’s deep-seated anguish and frustration with our country.

Black people in the United States have always lived divided lives, torn between the high ideals America stands for and the disappointing reality our nation has fallen into. America decried racism in Nazi Germany while embracing it on our own soil. America lauded Gandhi overseas but assassinated King back home. America opposed apartheid as early as the 1940s yet supported Jim Crow until the 1960s.

United

I still remember sitting with my dad a few years back, overcome by my newfound jadedness. I shared my grievances with him and expected him to say, “Son, welcome to the table.” But rather, he told me he was still proud to be an American. The United States is still the nation my father dreamed of coming to from his youth. The United States is still the nation where my father proved that blood, sweat, tears and an unremitting hunger for success can open nearly every door and shatter countless glass ceilings. And this hope, this pride is what he’s passed onto me.

So as a Juneteenth Father’s Day approaches, I celebrate all the black fathers who refused to give into cynicism and despair. I celebrate all the black fathers who stuck around, gritted their teeth, and refused to give up or give in. I celebrate all of the black fathers who poured themselves out for their nations, their companies, and their families even when no one gave them an ounce of appreciation. And most of all, I celebrate my own father. I love you, Dad.

Great Expectations

By Ife J. Ibitayo

The actor Ryan Reynolds once said, “When you have expectations, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.” Reynolds is not exactly the greatest sage of our generation, but his viewpoint carries strong resonance for many, especially millennials. We millennials are the perennial pimple-faced freshmen of our era, the hormonal, awkward teenagers who never really grew up. We just transferred our angst from classrooms to boardrooms and home offices. We are jaded about politics, jaded about the economy, and jaded about God.

Dashed Expectations

Irish theologian Alister McGrath wrote that, “For many Christians, an experience of God lies at the heart of the religious dynamic. This experience may subsequently lead to theological formulations…yet these formulations are ultimately secondary to the experience that precipitated and shaped them.” In other words, our thoughts of God often stem from our experience of God, not the other way around. And one of the prevailing sentiments of God today is disappointment.

God allowed our nation to experience one of the greatest recessions in American history. He stood by as COVID-19 snuffed out 6 million precious lives. And He did nothing as Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. Many would rather live in a world without God than a God who would allow such tragedies as these.

These past several years, I’ve struggled with disappointment with God as well. I was disappointed with college, grad school, my first job, and my first love interest. I’ve spent months working myself into frenzied excitement about a promise I believed I’d received from the big man upstairs only to have my foundation collapse. I wake up lying on the cold floor surrounded by my dashed expectations and shattered dreams. I’ve spent many nights crying out to a God who is inconveniently silent when I need to hear from Him the most.

Great Expectations

In the midst of my dejection, I stumbled upon a book by one of my favorite author’s called Disappointment with God. In it, Philip Yancey wrote, “Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.” In the middle of a rainstorm, it may feel like the sun will never shine again, but we know it will—it must—because the sun is reliable. Similarly, God is trustworthy. The weeping prophet Jeremiah once said, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23). God is more dependable than the sun, and every new day we rise to affirms this truth.

Conclusion

We may be going through a disappointing season right now, and greater disappointments surely lay ahead. But we must not forget in the darkness what we proclaimed in the light. The LORD is not a disappointing God but a great one. And a great God demands great expectations.

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

(1 Corinthians 2:9)

Hope Deferred (Time & Timing Part 2)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

For Part 1 on “Living in the Present”, click here.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12a NIV). The truth of this proverb resonates deep within me. I’ve waited for sicknesses to be healed, relationships to be redeemed, and dreams to be realized. Some of these have come to pass, but all too many are still waiting in the wings. This season of waiting has given me an opportunity to reflect on the stages of waiting I’ve experienced with my writing.

Hope Deferred

I’ve written stories, poems, and essays throughout my life. I’ve always had a bit of a knack for stringing words together. But it wasn’t until I reached college that I became serious about writing. I transitioned from a person who writes “seasonally” to a consistent writer.

I still remember the thrill of sending out my first short story, “An Oculus for An Oculus”, to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. With unbridled hope and unrealistic optimism, I mailed my piece off and excitedly looked forward to securing my first publication.

A month later, I received my first rejection. I was a bit discouraged, but I shook it off and sent out my story again, and again, and again. Soon I found I had submitted my story everywhere under the sun and then some, but I had turned up empty handed.

I convinced myself that it must have been just that story. I was a new writer after all, so I had a lot to learn. So I wrote more stories, sent them out, and received yet more rejections. No matter how hard I tried or how much I wrote, I could never break through.

Hope Fulfilled

My faith went through stages. It began with zealous prayer and great expectation. Then it transitioned into bargaining. I promised God I’d give Him the proceeds from my first publication, then the first $100 bucks I made from my writing. Then it degraded to tearful pleading as my hope sunk into the morass of disappointment.

I nearly gave up several times along the journey. Disillusionment discouraged me from wasting any more time writing. But a timely word from my parents or an encouraging personal rejection such as this one—”I see potential in your writing (which is why I pulled this one out of the slush pile to read myself instead of assigning it to an associate editor and why I provided some feedback) so please keep writing and keep submitting! I suspect you will have pro sales under your belt by the time we reopen next year.”—gave me the nudge I needed to try “just one more time.”

After seven years, over a dozen polished pieces, and hundreds of letters of rejection, I am finally published! I feel no shame saying that tears came to my eyes when I received it. Like Proverbs 13:12 goes on to say, “a dream fulfilled is a tree of life”, and this accomplishment has brought me much needed comfort and encouragement.

Conclusion

Now I’ve spent this article talking about my writing. Although it is an important passion to me, it may not be nearly as important to you as your health, finances, or your relationships. But the same principle applies.

You too probably have dreams that have been deferred far longer than you ever imagined. You might have even given up on them. But we must be careful to not interpret God’s “wait” as a “no”. If God asks us to wait on Him, to tarry long in His presence, we must not give up. God always keeps His promises. It might just take a little longer than we expected.

“‘And will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night? Will He keep putting them off? I tell you, He will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?’”

(Luke 18:7-8 NIV)

To read my first publication, “Untraditional”, click here to purchase a copy of Andromeda Spaceways Magazine Issue #81.