A Sneak Peek of My Next Book

Starting to write a new book can be an intimidating process. After all, I’m not an experienced author of this new book. It’s my first dance with these words… these thoughts… these lessons.

With each new message, I’m a first-time author all over again.

And in this next book, I’m tackling rejection and loneliness. Not in a sad, let’s-get-down-in-the-dumps-together way.

Nope. More like a girlfriend chat where we all find ourselves saying, “Yep… I’ve felt that. I’ve thought that. Now, what do we do about it?”

So, I thought I would give my blog friends a sneak peek… a little slice of one of my chapters.

After you read this, {insert me blushing and sweating and eating a stale Christmas cookie} would you leave me a comment below with what you’d like to see addressed in a book about rejection and loneliness?

Your input is a pure treasure to me.

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There’s a lady at my gym who hates me. No, I’m serious. She sees me coming and I can feel little poofs of disdain chugging out of her ears as her feet are churning 87 miles per hour on the elliptical machine. I honestly don’t know how she goes so fast. I once tried to keep up with her.

It was awful.

And I think this was the day her infuriation with me started.

Let me back up and confess my sins that started this whole thing.

The elliptical machines are set up very close together and are completely awkward with their angular moving parts. Think if a New York high rise and an elephant had a baby. That’s an elliptical machine.

Now, conjure up a picture in your mind of the most athletic person you know. The one who doesn’t have a drop of fat on their entire body, not even at their belly button, which should be illegal in my cellulite-ridden opinion. Okay, do you have your person?

That’s her. She’s honestly stunningly beautiful.

Then picture a marshmallow dressed in a t-shirt and spandex pants. Her ponytail is rather tight but not much else is. That’s me. Hello world.

So, I have to sort of get in her space just a tad to mount my machine and I think I threw off her rhythm. That was sin number one.

And then I decided to try to stay in sync with her because I wanted to teach all the folks at the gym that day that,though my legs and derrière might not look like it, I’m in shape. My heart can pump with the best of them. And by golly I was tired of being out-ellipticalled by her. That was sin number two.

And then there may have been a little issue with me taking a phone call while working out. In my defense this is not at all my common practice. But a friend called who really needed me.

I realize now I should have stepped off my machine and taken the call elsewhere. But I was sort of in a competition at this point and needed to win this thing on behalf of every other marshmallow-feeling woman.

I tried to chat quietly but when you feel like a lung might very well pop out of your mouth at any minute, it’s difficult to whisper-talk. That was sin number three.

Three strikes and she deemed me out. Out of my mind. Out of line. Out of control.

She abandoned her elliptical and huffed over to the treadmill. And she’s hated me ever since.

But then the other day, something occurred. Something odd that stunned me.

She smiled at me.

It wasn’t an evil, I’m-about-to whip-your-tail-on-the-gym-floor kind of smile. It was more like a “oh hey, I’ve seen you here before, right?” kind of smile.

I thought about her expression the entire time on the elliptical that morning. I mean I analyzed it up one side and down the other. Was it just a stunned reaction kind of thing where she felt forced to smile because she couldn’t quite figure out what else to do?

Or was it “I think we could be friends?”

Or was it a truce of some sorts?

I’ve decided it wasn’t any of those. I truly believe it was a simple smile acknowledging that she’s seen me but has none of this crazy hate toward me at all.

It’s all been a perception thing on my part.

So let me rewrite the story as I now believe it actually is.

There’s a lady at the gym who really enjoys her workouts. One day the gal next to her talked on the phone so instead of making a deal out of it she just transitioned over to the treadmill.

She really hadn’t thought of it much since. And then one day she saw this same woman in the bathroom and smiled and thought, “Good for you for getting up this morning and working out.”

End of story.

Obviously, I don’t know what went through her head as she smiled. But I think my second version is closer to reality than my first.

Which has really gotten me thinking about all the many times I assign thoughts to others that they never really think. I hold them accountable to harsh judgments they never make. And I own a rejection from them they never gave me.

I know not every rejection is like this.

Some are completely certified and undeniable. As clear as a just-cleaned window. And the feelings so intense they can make you as horrifically stunned as a bird soaring eastward toward the morning sun only to slam headfirst into that clean window. The thud feels like it might just kill you.

That’s true rejection.

But then there’s this perceived rejection like I had with my fellow gym-goer.

I don’t even think I was really on her radar.

But in my mind I was absolutely in her crosshairs.

And so goes the crazy inside our heads sometimes.

It makes me remember something I saw an author friend of mine do several years ago that I filed away in my “Words I Love” notebook. She was signing a book. I peaked over to see what she was writing.

Her approach was simple. Before signing her name she wrote, “Live loved.”

Instead of an instruction, it was a proclamation. One that now arrests my soul and is so applicable to our discussion at hand.

Live from the abundant place that you are loved and you won’t find yourself begging others for scraps of love.

It’s not deciding in your mind, I deserve to be loved.

Or manipulating your heart to feel loved.

It’s settling in your soul, I was created by a God who formed me because He so very much loved the very thought of me. When I was nothing, He saw something and declared it good. Very good. And very loved.

This should be the genesis thought of every new day. Not because of how terrific I am. God doesn’t base His affection on my wilted efforts.

No, God’s love isn’t based on me.

It’s simply placed on me.

And is the place from which I should live.

Related posts:

It’s not just a Book. It’s a meal. A blanket. A textbook. A mission field.
The Day I Lost My Smile
The Song My Soul Needs