Every life has its share of pain. No matter how gently we live with one another, we’re bound to be offended sooner or later. So, given that fact, what do we do about it?

Two events in the writing world have caused a bit of pain in the past weeks. The first was that for many of us our Genesis results were less than we anticipated. Or, in my case, they were about what I expected, but I still wished they’d been better. That’s not a very big pain in the whole scheme of things, still I interacted with several others who were feeling the same disappointment. I have to say that it took a bit of “bucking up” for all of us to digest the information, decide how much to take to heart and how much to take with a grain of salt and then decide to use the critiques as part of our learning process. We had to make the decision to turn the pain into something valuable.

The other issue came up on the ACFW loop. A writer gave her opinion that Christian writers should make more effort to cross over into the secular market and further, Christian writing is still not up to snuff or it would be winning more awards. You can imagine how well that comment went over on the Christian writers loop. Whether or not the judgment is accurate, it was bound to hurt a little bit.  I watched closely to see how the conversation played out. After all, when we get hurt, we bleed and we may want to retaliate. The feelings ran high and there were lots of responses about purpose in writing and winning and quality of writing and more.  There were some very thoughtful comments and for the most part everyone refrained from rolling in the mud. I’m glad.

I just finished writing seven devotionals on forgiveness. When we feel offended, Christian or not, we’ll feel the urge to defend ourselves and possibly get a dig in at the offender too. But if we want to serve Christ and reflect His life in ours, we’ll find a way to express ourselves without hurting back. It was encouraging to see the two writing situations play out with grace. Well done, writers.