Rejected

The Russian Judge

Somewhere in time, okay maybe I won’t tell you, but the somewhere in time is my childhood.  Do you remember watching the Olympics and the athlete would give a good performance and we would wait for the judge’s response?  All down the line, the judges would give marks that were similar and then you would get to the judge from Russia and that judge would score sometime three or more points lower than any of the other judges. This was the height of the cold war, so the reason it sticks with me could be that at the time I grew up it made us a little more sensitive.  I’m not sure, but it is a joke of sorts for me and my family.  When only one person judges your work bad, it must be the Russian judge.

Last year I entered my first writing contest.  I got my results back Monday morning. 

I was so excited about the contest that I quickly read through the rules and then I set about making my sixty five thousand word manuscript the best I could make it.  I spent hours tweaking, changing and perfecting.  Right before I was ready to submit, I reread the rules and found they only wanted ten pages.  Now I needed to find the best ten pages.  I could have sent the beginning of the book, but I opted to send what I thought was an exciting part of the story.  In my ten pages, I could have submitted a synopsis of the story, but I opted not to do that, hoping that the story would carry itself.

That was my first mistake.  The first judges’ comments were focused on what they didn't know of the time and setting or why the people were where they were.  If I had given a synopsis, my marks would have been better.  Seeing they were not terrible as is, I thought I might easily improve the next time.

The second judge was similar, the marks were a tiny bit lower, but overall the comments were helpful.

The third judge was my Russian judge.  No comments except for one.  The one comment they gave me was that next time I should proof read it.  They scored me at the very bottom in every category.  I was confused.  The first judge gave me decent marks in all areas and the last one put me in the bottom.  Who do you trust?

I will be honest; it made me a little mad.  How could someone make a comment like that?  That manuscript had been proof read about six times.  If one judge is stating that my grammar and writing was fine, what did this judge find so terrible?

It was early in the morning, so I had to go to work.  I told my husband about it and we laughed how this was like the Russian Judge.  Thus the Russian judge comment was born in retelling my experience.  For some reason, sarcasm is my first defense.  Once I have gotten other people to laugh with me over my perceived misfortune, can God finally begin to talk to me about the problem.

I spent my drive to work asking God why he would give me the desire to write and more stories in my head than I had time to put on paper.  Why would he do that if I was terrible at it?

Have you ever had someone make a comment about something you have done?  Something that you worked hard on and they just trivialize it and explain how your best effort is not good enough.  I think all of us had.  For some reason, twenty people can tell us something is good, but that one person is the person that gets us, gets under our skin and causes our irritation. 

What do we do in that situation? 

If you’re like me, you get angry, then you get discouraged and then you pray.  Why I don’t pray first, I’ll never know.  Also, why do we let the opinion of the one, override the opinions of the others?  I don’t have an answer for that either.

Matthew 23:8-10 (The Message Bible) “…Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do.  Save that authority for God, let him tell you what to do…”

If God wants me to write, I should write regardless of what the expert says. I can use this to spur me on to perfecting my writing even more.  I start shortly some creative writing classes in hopes of improving my craft.  But even if I am told it would be impossible for me to become a published writer, I say this: Luke 18:27 (NIV) “Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.””

So I will keep writing until God removes the desire or I run out of stories to tell.  Maybe we can pray together that God will give me the desire and talent for home improvement instead.