Day #18

January 18, 2014

A troubling Facebook post came across recently: please message my child and let them know they are not a failure. The troubling part is not that it was hard to find something to say to this person reminding them they are not a failure (for they truly are a beautiful person), but hoping they would really see it for themselves. What I mean is, no matter how many times a person hears they have value, they probably have trouble believing it for themselves. It seems much easier to think things like: people are just being nice; they don’t really know me or what I have done; if they knew what I was thinking they wouldn’t say those encouraging things.

So here is the post I wrote (it’s a quote from author Sally Hogshead): “Some days success is about luck, or talent, or skill. But most days, success is about wrestling failure to the ground until it screams uncle.” Then I added, God gives us the strength to keep wrestling and loves us in the struggle.

The quote may or may not have made a difference for this young adult, but it did for me. As my husband says, better to be lucky than smart any day. Well, there is something to that idea, except that I’m not sure luck has a lot to do with much of life. But trust does. Trusting God, specifically, for me. That God will give me the strength I need to handle the times when ‘luck’ seems to have run out, disappointment has come calling, fear is running rampant, or I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed and can’t seem to get it together.

Wrestle that sense of failure to the ground for me, God, ok?! I trust you will.

Blessings.