There’s been a failure narrative running in the background
of my life for a long time now; it is one that I have allowed, fed, and
unknowingly fallen prey to time and again.
There was this time in 7th grade at a new school
one hundred times bigger than my last, where I tripped over my insanely dorky
shoes and fell on my face immediately upon entrance to the stadium-sized lunch
room. Talk about an audience...and
entrance. And yes, if you know me, I
suppose I have made a habit of tripping at inopportune times; I believe my lack
of coordination also clearly defines my life.
Needless to say, falling on my face in front of crowds is
not fun. Not only is not fun, it has
become something I seriously avoid. Even
if it means I hesitate a little too long before stepping or I run in the other
direction. But what I am starting to
learn is that not every failure is worn on your face … because I am just not as
powerful or in control as I imagine myself to be, as much as I want to be
sometimes. Failure, after all, is what
they have always said – a part of life.
One of my favorite therapeutic themes I loved to reinforce
while working with at-risk youth was learning to recover from failure, rather
than impressing on their hearts an expectation of making failure obselete. I guess I was trying to teach it to myself,
too. How to get up off the floor, plaid
lunchbox in hand, dust off those pleated khaki pants, hold your head up, and
get in that lunch line like you have a right to eat some lunch. Because you do. And no failure defines you. I would say, “That we fail is not the worst
thing…or the end of the world; it is inevitable.
What is the most important thing is that from the failure, we learn and
we grow and we change.” There may have
been some kids who listened, but my heart was not ready to yet.
Today, I am more than six months into the tearing down of an
empire I had built of my life and with myself, and I am hearing the message now
loud and clear. I am seeing the fear
now. I can still hear the voices but can
now identify the lies. And I am watching
myself, as if in a theater chair at the AMC, shrink back and run away from
potential failure. I’m aware. And I
watch: Procrastinate. Wait. Hold
off. Let me just hold onto my little
control group over here forever and forget about the risking, the running, the
adventuring I once knew. Because, finally, I feel safe.
But nothing can be sustained in this world without growth
and there is no true growth without risk.
There is no forward without movement.
And it has been okay to be still and to stay and to listen because I needed
to know all of this, I needed to know myself again, I needed to be able to hear
and discern God’s voice again. I needed
to remember the 7th grade girl in the lunchroom because somewhere
inside me, she still exists, and sometimes, I think, she is granted too much
input on my decisions.
I was never an athlete, but I played on several teams. I was always so relieved when I didn’t have
to go into the game. So I could miss a
shot. Or when I didn’t get put in an event, so I wouldn’t have to come in
second to last. You can make your bed
anywhere, and so often, I made mine where it was safest.
There have been a few times in my life, though, that I have
stuck my neck out far and wide. Times I’ve
been brave. Some things I believed in so
much that all the failure didn’t matter.
And there have been some safe places in my life, where I felt safer to
boldly take steps in the direction I felt called. But though I boldly risked and stepped out, I
never detached my own sense of worth or identity or wholeness from my ability
to avoid the failure and make it succeed.
And so when things I’ve invested in, even partly or wholly out of my
control, have tanked…gone under…found failure lurking – I internalize it
all. Well, I try to swallow the bitter
taste of failure, but it’s like the bite is too big for my mouth.
How much pride does it take to get here? I’m so ashamed. That I ever could think that alone I could
bring something meaningful to fruition or failure. A perfect self-sufficiency. A perfectionistic striving. A gold bar of expectation. That point in time, when I bought into these
lies, they consumed me and they wrapped their spiny tenacles around me
tightly. They owned me.
And so I’ve been doing really tangible things lately. Where I can do a and b and produce c easily
and almost with predictability. A new
world from anything I’ve done before. And
it’s been healing me in its own way. But
I’ve already learned and seen that even in the tangible, the predictable, the
controllable, God will have His way. He
will give His blessing when and as He wills.
And all over again, it is just about trust and Him and not us, our
abilities, or our smarts. It can never
be about us.
And He’s brought me now to this crossroads. To leap or not to leap. And to make it to the other side, I would need His provision, His power, His strength, His grace, His wisdom, and His protection. And so all at once my faith and fear are in the hot seat. My faith. Do I trust that He can be all that for me and take care of me when I may have to risk it all? My fear. What are you willing to allow the fear of failure to rob you of this time?
Many would say I’ve been here before, but I don’t
agree. With every step in our journey
and in every season, our eyes and hearts are opened up more and more to our
reality. We think we live in reality; we
really exist within our perception. And
so several steps back, when I leapt in faith, trusting God to take care of me
with no knowledge of the future? It was
faith in obedience. But I had not yet become
acquainted with how my fears and failures were driving my heart. I did not know how they’d chipped away at me
for years, how they’d worn me inside out.
I had not identified this big gaping hole of healing I was needing, that
He was literally carrying me to like the man on the sand leaving footprints
behind, and that I never would have seen without being obedient right then and
there.
Last week, I took a photo of my sister in front of the
ginormous gate of the Yankees Stadium in the Bronx. She was tiny before it, as she stood gazing up
at it in awe. She wasn’t there to
conquer the stadium, to prove to the world she was a Yankee, to climb it’s
heights for a trophy. She was there to
see it, enjoy it, worship it (okay, just let me, because it works), and
ultimately let the Yankees do their thang.
I’ve gotten off the subway, I’m walking up the stairs. The first thing you can see at the Yankee
Stadium metro stop is the heights and depths of the stadium. I’m small, always so very small in New York
City. And I am looking at this massive
thing before me. And I’m seeing it differently for the first time. I want to stay small in light of His big. I love how small I feel in New York…everything
else so big around me…making me anonymous, pressing me into obscurity. I want to stay anonymous in His name.
And He’s brought me here, before this huge stadium –
something I wouldn’t be able to force success with…I’d have to rely on His
provision and His blessing – something I am not fully equipped for, something
out of my own comfortable areas of expertise, something that could easily fail
but God… I am standing here and I want to do with God what my sister did with
her Yankees – see Him, enjoy Him, worship Him and ultimately let HIM do HIS
thang.
Because I am done pushing, pressing, climbing, running –
thinking if I push hard enough, press in enough, climb high enough, run hard
enough I can keep the failure away. I am
done hoping I don’t have to get in the game to avoid the missed shot…I’m ready
to worship with all I’ve got – letting His hand guide mine in His time and His
goodness and His power. And leaving the
outcome to Him. I’m done controlling
every single thing. I’m done worrying
about outcomes like my worth depends on it. I’m here, breathing fully in this air and
filling my lungs with life. I am
present, I am trusting, I am not what I do.
I am not what I have done. I am
not the outcome. I am His.
My daughter has been singing a song she made up lately – “You
can be, you can be, more than one thing!”
I believe the song was constructed to reassure her that she can in fact
be a dancer and princess and horse owner someday. I told her this morning, “I am more than one
thing, and so are you,” and I started listing, “I am a wife, mommy, daughter,
friend, sister…” and I landed at, “Child of God.” Child of God.
I’m resting there right now, and I know I’m safe in His arms.
Comments
Post a Comment