i got a book deal, you guys

Several years ago, I wrote a book. Then I wrote a proposal for it. A wonderful agent agreed to represent me (Hi Jessie!). For almost a whole year, no one wanted to publish me, because my platform was too small.

Rejection based on unpopularity felt like being in middle school again in all the worst ways.

Then last March, a publisher decided to maybe take a chance on me. For a hot minute it looked like all my dreams might come true. But then they didn’t.

No book deal for you, sister.

I was devastated. I wanted to quit. (Running away is my favorite way to process hard things.) I felt like a failure in the deepest part of my soul.

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But my husband and my agent both insisted I shouldn’t quit. I begrudgingly followed their advice, not so much because I believed it would work out, but more because I was too sad to argue with them.

This is what I learned about failure and resilience last year: When we face failure and accept it, but refuse to quit, our true identity is revealed. You don’t really know who you are until you fall flat on your face, stand back up, and walk on.

Last year was the year I accepted that I wasn’t currently every publishing house’s dream author, but that God had asked me to write anyways.

So I wrote. And I trusted the God who loves me. I wrote a new book proposal for a new book. I wrote the sample chapters. When I sent it all to my agent, I had the long list of faithful men and women in Hebrews 11 rolling through my head. They never received what they waited for, but receiving what they hoped for wasn’t their glory; what made them worthy of honor was their unswerving commitment to believe that God was faithful to his people. I wondered some days if the testimony of my life would be that I wrote for God alone and every book I produced would wind up a burnt offering before God. I stopped thinking about platform completely and focused on living with my full attention on the places life was growing in abundance and beauty around me: our family, our church, our friendships.

I was rewarded with a kind of peace that really did surpass my understanding. I still hoped for a book deal, but I accepted that God was writing my story, and I was simply receiving the pages of my life as they came to me.

Then in on November 28, I got a call. A publisher wanted to buy my second book.

I will not shut my mouth about it!

Seriously, you guys, I GOT A BOOK DEAL. Can you even believe it??? Somebody put a praise on it, please!

When I got my first full rejection from a publisher several years ago, I made a cake to celebrate failure. Somehow it made sense to eat the bitterness of rejection with my husband and kids. I promised myself that all the rejection cakes would be tiny tastes of a greater, more glorious moment farther on down the road.

So naturally, on the day I got the call, I drove to Costco and picked out a huge sheet cake. I took it to the pastry counter and asked the woman if she could write something on it.

“Can you write ‘I got a book deal’ on this cake?”

“Uh, sure,” she said while clearly thinking I was a crazy person. “But this is definitely the first time I’ve ever written that on a cake.”

I smiled and thought, Maybe it won’t be the last.

Because, hopefully, there will be more book deals and (bless them all!) more rejections, too. I’ll take them all, in small bites and in big gulps, because somewhere between this cake from two years ago:

And this one:

I became a braver woman.

Here’s to 2019 and being born into new levels of faith and courage. Here’s to failing and getting back up and embracing the journey God chooses for each one of us, whatever it may hold. Here’s to trusting our bitter days all lead to a sweeter day in the future.

Most of all here’s to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, “who although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8)

May we learn the kind of obedience that can lead a broken world home to the God who loves them so much.

And for goodness sake, let’s all eat a lot of cake along the way.