Failure

If I let it, I can learn a lot from my failures.  Because in my failures, I've come to the end of me, the end of what I can do, and I need to rely on Something bigger than me.  If I only pay attention to my successes, I'm only reinforcing what I already am, I'm not challenging myself.  Failure makes me rely more on God, and also more on others as well.  In true community, we need not pretend we don't fail, don't have doubts, don't wrestle with meaninglessness.  Rather, these very things can open us to new truth, new opportunity, new life.  I believe we live in a society that rewards success, but doesn't know quite what to do with failure.  We brush over it, it makes us uncomfortable.  But if we pay attention to it, let grace touch it, be willing to learn, than we don't hate or try and hide these things but rather allow God to hold us in them.  We must remember, before we did anything good or bad, Jesus died for us.  He's not afraid of our failures, and invites us into freedom from the fear of failure too.  I believe that interdependence knows better what to do with failure than independence.  When we live in community, when we see others as our sisters and brothers trying to work out this life than I can let these people speak life, grace and meaning into me.  If on the other hand I try and conquer all my inconsistencies in a vacuum, than my struggle lacks meaning and I'm only trying to tackle my problems in my problematic way, only perpetuating the problem.  We need to harness the spirit of when we were young, when we fell down, scraped our knee, but than got up again and kept running.  The mere fact that we are finite beings in search of the Infinite One means we're going to make mistakes, means we're never going to fully grasp what that is.  I can let this torment me, or I can give up and trust that God is good.

God give me the grace to see myself as you see me.