One day I ceased to be excited about getting the mail. In fact, I wished it would never come. When it did and I inevitably flipped through the letters addressed to me, I held out one of them and said to my wife, “I know what this is: another rejection letter.” I didn’t even have to open it. I just knew. That’s how many times my writing had been rejected by the people who could publish me.
Did I give up? Stop writing altogether? I thought I would. I figured maybe writing wasn’t really my thing. I felt deep down in my heart that God had led me toward writing . . . but then why all the rejection? I assumed I’d been wrong in what I thought God had told me, and so I was ready to throw in the towel and focus on something else.
And yet, I simply couldn’t stop writing. Try as I might, I felt a calling, and I had to answer. But I did make a pretty major change in how I approached what I wrote from then on. Instead of thinking of myself as a “personal author” and “privileged originator” (see Science and Health, p. 263), as Mary Baker Eddy called mortals on one occasion, I checked my ego, pride, and sense of ownership at the door. I stopped spinning my mental cartwheels in search of a “good idea.” I realized I didn’t have to try so hard. My writing was never really about me. It was always about sharing the message God had given me to share.
