Echoing the Ancients

I’ve been doing a Bible Study on women of the Bible and it’s scary how much I hear their voices echoed in my own, especially today. 

I got a rejection letter today. Well, an email, to be exact. I found thoughts like these running through my head: 

How long, O Lord? I’m getting old! (Can you hear Sarah’s lament in there?)

I have no idea where I’m going. Can I just lie down and quit? (Hagar the handmaiden’s actions spoke louder than her words.)

I’ll do another book. Maybe then an editor will love me. (Hello, Leah.)

Give me publication, lest I die! (Poor Rachel! The very thing she said would happen if she didn’t get children happened while bearing the second one she demanded.) 

In all the recounting of these women’s lives, I see their impatience and all the trouble it caused. But I also see God’s redemptive grace. I see women who had a sure word from the Lord about their futures, some even from the mouths of angels, and yet they wavered in their belief that what was spoken of them and to them would ever happen.

I don’t have quite that sure of a word. I don’t have any divine promise that I’ll ever see a book of mine published. But I know I have to write. It’s as much a part of me as blue eyes and brown hair. So for now, I’ll go with that.