Writer, Don’t Give Up on Your Dream

 

By Andrea Merrell

“I don’t know how much more rejection I can take,” the woman said to me. “I really thought it would happen this time. I feel like a complete failure.”

What she couldn’t see was how much she had grown as a writer from that very first rejection letter. When it came, she dug in her heels, learned the craft, and her writing improved exponentially. She simply needed to be reminded of how good she was and to be encouraged to never give up.

Sometimes we all need that reminder. We fall, we get back up. We fail, we try again. We learn from our mistakes and keep perfecting our skills.

In one of his movies, John Wayne said, “You’re going to spend the rest of your life getting up one more time than you’re knocked down, so you’d better start getting used to it."

All successful people—no matter their vocation—know how important it is to keep getting up when life knocks them down. To keep moving forward. We only fail when we stop trying. Author Ben Stein once said, “The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated. It is finished when it surrenders.”

The Word for You Today puts it into perfect perspective:

When you have experienced failure, you’re actually in a better position to achieve success than people who have not. When you fail and fail again—and keep bouncing back and learning from your failures—you’re building character, strength, tenacity, experience, and wisdom. And people who develop these qualities are capable of sustaining their successes unlike those for whom good things come too early and too easily.

Failure and rejection are a given, a part of life. It’s how we handle them that matters. We can walk away defeated or learn from each situation and grow in ways we never imagined or thought possible. We can learn more from one failure and the effort it takes to overcome it than we can from one instant success. In God’s kingdom, it’s not what we do but who we are and who we become that matters.

When God places a dream in our heart, He can equip us and make it happen in the right way and at the right time. All we have to do is keep trusting Him and make the decision to never give up on our dreams.

Photo by Jake Espedido on Unsplash

Photo by Sorina Bindea on Unsplash