You know, life would be a whole lot easier if we could go through life without messing up or failing at anything. Right?
I mean, seriously. Who wants to fail at anything? Who wants to mess up?
There’s a reason parents try to teach their kids to do the right things from an early age in an attempt to keep them from making the same mistakes they made when they were young. Mistakes can hurt. And parents don’t want their kids to hurt.
But if I’ve learned nothing else in life, I’ve learned this: the best lessons I’ve learned I’ve learned through experiencing them firsthand. Have they been a bundle of joy to learn? Ha! No. But some things don’t truly make sense—no matter how in-depth the explanation—until you’ve lived it out yourself.
Failures have taught me that the successes are worth more and sweeter once I finally get there. Failures have also taught me that there are certain things that I’ve wanted that have not been right for me and for the purpose of my life. Those have honestly been the hardest—but most worthwhile—lessons to learn.
Paul, who penned much of the New Testament, writes this to us in Romans 5 “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead us to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love” (vv. 3–5, NLT).
The troubles, trials, mistakes, messes, and failures in life will almost always turn into something beautiful here on earth. They teach us something or give us an appreciation for something in a way we wouldn’t have had without the negative.
I’ve heard it said many times before, and I’m sure you have too: the sunshine loses its meaning without the rain. So, too, does happiness without sorrow.
But my confident hope comes into play that even if things don’t work out the way I hope and wish they would here on earth, I know that they eventually will when this life ends and I spend eternity with God. And I gain comfort in the knowledge in the here and now that He loves me in the middle of my messes and failures.
I realize that not everyone who reads these posts is a Christian, and I respect that. I realize some of you may not even believe in God, and I get that too.
My hope for you, as you read these posts, is that you know that you aren’t struggling through this life alone. Suffering isn’t the only thing for you. Failure isn’t what defines you. It’s a blip on the story of your life, something that happened to you, not something that is you, and I hope you understand the difference.
We all mess up. We all fall down. That doesn’t mean we don’t get up and keep trying. When we do, we’ll be stronger and better people than we would have been without the trials and troubles.
Keep taking steps. Keep trying. If you keep failing at the same thing, maybe that path isn’t for you. Or maybe you simply need to take a step back, breathe, and approach it from a different direction.
Failing isn’t a final destination. It’s a stop along the way. Find the hope in the failure. And if you’re having trouble with that, reach out to someone. My inbox is always open.
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Brittany Stonestreet 