Rejection....

As part of my ongong training, I have applied to become an Accredited Counsellor with a national awarding UK body. It involved months of compiling data, and a lot of typing of reports, case studies and so on. The process is costly (in cash as well as time), but is increasingly necessary, as it is important for people who claim to be Counsellors to be able to verify this. Surprisingly, currently (in the UK) it is perfectly possible to call yourself a Counsellor, and set up in private practise, without actually completing any training whatsoever. However, there are moves afoot for all Counsellors to become accredited and nationally recognized, and the "drive" is to do this before Government legislation forces this upon us.

Anyway, after three months of waiting for a reply, I got a rejection letter yesterday. I have the option to re-submit two sections of the work (at additional costs), appeal against the decision (again, at extra cost, and no guarantee of success), or to wait a while, and re-apply all over again (this time, with about three times the cost of a re-submission)

Needless to say, I have run a whole gamut of emotions over this in the last 48 hours, from despair to anger, from pointlessness to revenge, and back again. My Supervisor today was great, and very wise, but he was as surprised as I was by the whole thing.

But it started me thinking about rejection, and fear.

It is a huge subject, which I will refrain from attempting to do justice to, here. However, rejection can be crippling, especially when it takes you by surprise. Doubly hard when you are rejected by faceless individuals, who have a lot of clout over your career. But I am learning that bad things happen to all sorts of people, including me. I have no monopoly on good times, nor the right to demand them all the time.

What I do have is a loving Father who trusts me enough to try and start handing this over to Him, instead of having a tantrum and demanding "Why me?"

What I do have is an incredibly supportive family, who believe in me.

And what I do have is a second chance.

I could tell these people precisely what to do with their re-submission - I certainly felt like this last night. I wanted to get out of this business, because it felt like too much was being asked of me. But I realized that all jobs cost, and anything else might be out of the frying pan into a fire. And besides, until God tells me to leave, clearly and unequivocably, then here is where I'm supposed to stay.

Maybe somebody somewhere wants me out of this business because it actually makes a difference if I stay.....