Rejection & Resilience

I recently got a publication rejection, and I was really sad about it because I thought the paper I wrote was good enough. But it just wasn't what the publishers were looking for, and I had to accept that. I was talking to a friend about how I felt and she said, "Just know that getting rejected doesn't mean your writing is bad." I took a deep breath, edited my paper, and moved on.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about resilience and faith, and whether the two go together. For the writing contest, I had to write a paper about resilience, and that really got me thinking about times when I’ve been resilient, and times when I should have been resilient, but wasn’t.

First Peter 1:6-7 says, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (ESV)

Basically what this verse means is that God will give us trials in life, and those trials test whether our faith is true or withered and fake. It’s like how when gold is put through fire, it comes out more beautiful than ever before. The fire that we go through and how we show resilience through trials is what helps us to be more beautiful on the inside. What’s in our hearts will eventually show in our lives. When my paper was rejected, I wanted to mope around and never write another word, but I chose resilience by picking myself back up and not quitting.

"Getting rejected doesn't mean your writing is bad."

The definition of resilience is “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties” – basically not being completely crushed when you go through hard times. Remember that God gives us trials for a reason, and He’ll always stay with us through whatever we face. God will always give us things we can’t handle – because we need Him to handle it for us.

Resilience isn’t something we can accomplish by ourselves, and that’s why we need Jesus.