The Rejection That Redefined Everything

The email arrived a few days ago, eight weeks after I’d sent my manuscript into the world. An agent who loved my writing, loved my premise, but wasn’t sure she could place Coming Out: Fearfully, Wonderfully, and Bipolar-ly Made. “Consider future submissions,” she wrote. Kind words wrapped around a no.

During these eight weeks of waiting, I’d already started revising. Dr. Sam Storms, who wrote an endorsement, worried that “Coming Out” in the title might mislead people to think I was a lesbian rather than coming out about my mental illness. A couple of beta readers agreed. So, I rebranded the entire manuscript: Fearfully, Wonderfully, and Bipolar-ly Made: From Shame to Sanctuary… while I was waiting.

Now I wonder if the agent might have placed this new version—the one that doesn’t confuse coming out with sexual orientation, the one that leads with faith instead of disclosure. But I’ll never know because she rejected the original. Sitting at the sunrise this morning, I wrote: “Lord, why isn’t this easier? Why can’t Your will be more placeable?”

The question echoes through everything right now: How much can I bend before I break?

When Structure Becomes Survival

My new principal pulled me aside last week. “We all need to be more flexible,” she said, when I explained why this year feels harder than last.

What’s different? A class meets in my room during planning every Monday, truncating my prep time when I need two screens and a quiet space to prepare. Other days, I have hallway duty for half my planning period, sitting at a student desk monitoring traffic while trying to work unproductively. Lunch is five minutes shorter. We have roster holes, so I’m covering classes during planning—students who’ve had no teachers, no structure, no routines. I never know if I’ll get my planning block or be asked to cover.

“Be flexible,” she says, while removing every stable structure that makes flexibility possible.

The Non-Negotiable Morning

“You’re too dedicated to the sunrise,” my husband told me last week. “Nothing would fall apart if you let that go.”

But I know better. I haven’t skipped the sunrise because I can’t afford to find out what would unravel. That thirty minutes of stillness isn’t optional; it’s load-bearing. It’s the one thing I refuse to test. It’s where I meet God before I meet the world.

In my journal this week, the prayers tell the story:

• Wednesday: “Lord, I need room to be wrong sometimes.”
• Thursday: “The world is waking up, so am I… Lord, make me light.”
• Friday: “Life is so uncertain… God, steady me at school with patience I don’t have.”
• Saturday: “Make me light, love, hope, and joy.”
• Sunday: “I’m going to keep showing up here. You’re the only thing I can count on.”
• Monday: “Can I really make a difference when, deep down, I feel broken?”

These sunrise prayers track the real cost of constant change – the exhaustion of never knowing what ground you’re standing on, except for the holy ground of that morning ritual.

The Myth of Flexibility

Here’s what no one teaches you about flexibility in school: it requires a foundation.

You can’t bend when you’re already breaking. You can’t adapt when everything is shifting. You can’t be flexible when there’s nothing solid to flex from. Flexibility without foundation isn’t resilience. It’s just chaos.

Some routines are lifelines. Some foundations can’t be compromised. And maybe the real flexibility is knowing the difference between what can change and what must stay constant.

Finding Light Without Bending

This morning I wrote: “Lord, make me light and love and joy to those I encounter.” Not flexible. Not bendable. Light.

It’s a prayer I’ve been praying all week, especially when the world demands I contort into shapes that don’t fit. There’s a difference between being rigid and being rooted. Between being inflexible and being stable. Between refusing to bend and knowing that some things—like faith, like morning prayers, like the discipline of meeting God at sunrise—shouldn’t break.

Last week in therapy, my counselor noted something important: often what looks like rigidity is actually wisdom. Knowing which structures keep you standing. Understanding which routines are lifelines. Recognizing that some foundations can’t be compromised without losing everything built on them. The Psalms call it being “established” and “not moved.”

The Tree and Its Roots

Everyone wants flexibility from me, but flexibility isn’t free-floating. A tree can bend in the wind because it’s anchored in the ground. Take away the roots, and it’s not flexible; it’s just falling.

The Psalmist knew this: “Blessed is the one… whose delight is in the law of the Lord… That person is like a tree planted by streams of water.” Planted. Rooted. Then able to yield fruit in season.

My sunrise routine isn’t rigidity. It’s survival. More than that, it’s sanctuary. My need for planning time isn’t inflexibility. It’s professional necessity. My questioning whether to reshape my book’s identity isn’t indecision. It’s integrity.

So yes, I’ll keep driving to the sunrise. Every morning after hitting the gym or visiting with Jack at 5 a.m. Because for thirty minutes each morning, I know exactly where I stand… on holy ground. The sun rises as promised. The birds fly in their ordained patterns. The water moves in its ancient rhythm. These things don’t ask me to be flexible. They just ask me to witness God’s faithfulness.

Can that be sufficient to rest in tonight? To know that some things shouldn’t bend?

What I’m Learning About Non-Negotiables
If you’re reading this while being asked to bend in too many directions, here’s what I’m discovering: Your non-negotiables aren’t weaknesses. They’re wisdom.

That morning routine you won’t give up? That’s not rigidity – it’s self-knowledge. That boundary at work you keep defending? That’s not inflexibility – it’s self-respect.
That practice that keeps you sane? That’s not optional – it’s essential.

We live in a world that glorifies endless flexibility, but trees that bend in every direction are just tumbleweeds. The strongest ones know when to bend and when to stand firm.

The decision is mine now: submit this safer, rebranded manuscript to new agents and wait another eight weeks, or self-publish while the message still feels urgent and true. But that’s just one decision among many. The bigger choice – the one I make every morning at 5 a.m. – is to protect what keeps me rooted.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be back at the beach, journal in hand, waiting for the sunrise and the clarity that accompanies it. Not because I’m inflexible, but because I’ve come to understand the difference between being accommodating and being anchored.

Undoubtedly, a tree needs roots before it can bend. And I’m still growing mine, one sunrise at a time, posing the same prayer I wrote this morning: “Lord, make Your will more placeable.”

Maybe He already has. Maybe the answer is in the anchoring, not the bending.

Maybe yours is too.