by Sandy Kirby Quandt @SandyKQuandt

On January 16, 2008, I submitted an article which told the events of the evening my 10-month-old son stopped breathing in the back of an ambulance. I believed the magazine I submitted to was a perfect fit. I received a nice rejection letter telling me the article was not something the editor was looking for at the time. 

Disappointment.

All through 2008 I submitted that article to numerous magazines. All rejected it. Although some rejection letters were encouraging, they were still rejections. From 2009 to 2011 I sent it out several more times. Each time the article met with the same fate. 

Discouragement.

I let the article sit in my files until May of 2012. I never gave up on it. I really believed the article I wrote telling how God brought me through an overwhelming situation was something others would benefit from reading. So at a writer’s conference in Colorado I showed it to an editor.

She liked it. She requested I submit the article, and submit I did.

On October 21, 2012 I received an offer to publish the article. Yay, God! On July 10, 2013, “Letting Go” posted on Today’s Christian Woman Parent Connect digital version. 

If you’ve done the math, you saw this was a long journey of over four years. Four years of closed doors from initial submission to acceptance. 

But God…

God knew the people he wanted my article to reach. He knew who would benefit from it the most. He orchestrated it all. Was I happy when the article kept being rejected? No. Was I discouraged? Yes. Did I give up? Not completely. I kept knocking on doors until the perfect one finally opened.

Perhaps you’ll find this interesting. The magazine I submitted my article to in January 2008 was Today’s Christian Woman print version. I never imagined in 2008 that in 2013 there would even be a digital version of the magazine. God, however, knew. His perfect timing. 

Are you in a place with your writing where you are knocking on closed doors and waiting for them to open? As difficult as it was for me to see, understand and truthfully, accept at the time all the closed doors, there was a reason. There’s a reason for your closed doors, too. 

Although we often wish we knew the reason, we don’t need to know it. What we need to do is keep knocking. Keep persisting. Keep trusting. Keep learning, so whenever God opens the doors we’ll be ready to move through them. 

Have you found yourself in a similar situation of waiting for doors to open? 

I wish you well.

Sandy Kirby Quandt is a freelance writer and follower of Jesus with a passion for history and travel. Passions that often weave their way into her stories and articles. She writes numerous articles, devotions, and stories for adult and children publications both print and online. Her devotions appear online at Christian Devotions and Inspire a Fire and in two Worthy Publishing compilation books; So God Made a Dog and Let the Earth Rejoice, plus Short and Sweet Too. Sandy won several awards for writing including Ninth Place and Honorable Mention in the 2020, 2017, and 2016 Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition in the Young Adult category, First place in the Blue Lake Christian Writer’s Retreat 2020 Living Waters Award in the Young Adult category, First Place in the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference Children’s Literature 2016 Foundation Awards, First Place in the 2017 Foundation Awards in the Young Adult, Middle Grade, and Flash Fiction categories. Looking for words of encouragement or gluten-free recipes? Then check out her blog at https://sandykirbyquandt.com twitter.com/SandyKQuandt