GLISTENING

I recently had a very heartbreaking experience with a publisher. Like most writers I have labor long and many hours, but publishing offers haven’t come. And especially when you are speaking in terms of novels. Using the aid of literary agents and professional editors just never improved my opportunities. It hasn’t compelled me to stop writing though. That is a passion I feel deep in my soul and regard it as an implant from God’s spirit. So come what may, I know I shall write, whether some publisher accepts my tome or not.

In this case what happen was that I found a publisher who claimed not to be a subsidy or vanity press publisher. Those are the kinds that for a fee will publish anything. So I gave them a try and sent a letter to see if they were interested in this one novel. To my surprise and delight they asked to see the manuscript. And then a few weeks later they actually contacted me and told me they accepted it for published.

Obvious if I could glisten from joy then I was glistening. So I reviewed their sample contract and then sent them the information they requested. I was told after I replied with an email they would send me a contract in the mail. Only that never happened. And I made three separate attempts to contact them by email to find out that status of my information. None of emails was ever answered. After a month of silence I have from past experience come to accept that basically means they have elected to not handle my manuscript.

Am I still glistening? Not so anyone would notice. And for me the biggest heartache came from having received good news that turned out to be false. It was much harder on my system to have my hope burn so bright and then fizzle when in reality this turned out like too many other experiences to be nothing more than a dead end.

Since my work was of a spiritual nature I have viewed it as something I did for the Lord. And my primary goal was to give it a chance to “glisten” that it might serve his purpose and hopefully serve as a form of inspiration.

Yet, once again, I am left to have to try and glisten by faith alone and hopefully say something in a posting that might touch or inspire. And if that serves the Lord’s purposes and in some small way help someone else who fights to keep trusting when life’s song is filled with too many sour notes then I will regard it as having been worth it.

I share this moment of dimming in my personal joy that perhaps will be one someone else will identify with in his or her life. There are far too many such moments at times in the life of faith.

And they are also opportunities to stand in faith during these trials and let God’s spirit flow through our willingness to keep trusting him even when we don’t get what we think we want in a given situation. That is the burning eternal in terms of a glistening in spirituality that will shine all the way into eternity.

I pray if you are in the midst of such a disappointment you will find the strength to let God’s spirit minister to you and not take the path of allowing the disappointment to cause you to give up. Faithfulness and obedience are the lights that will always glisten with God regardless of what others see.