Ever feel like a failure?
One day last week I peered into my washer completely mystified. I live in loose tops and leggings. I wash them on delicate in a separate load and hang them on a drying rack. This was my load in the washer. All these clothes belonged to me. Why were little bits of paper scattered through my load of clean clothes?
I called Ray to peek in, too. We were clueless. I examined the bits as I picked them off my clothes and the drum of the washer. As the ladies of my childhood used to say, “What in the world?”
These were obviously not bits of tissue or paper towel, but small pieces of white copy paper. Finally I pulled out a piece I could read. There was one readable word: failure. I stood contemplating that word and its broad meaning.
Ever feel like a failure? I do. This was a little, insignificant laundry failure. We women fear those kinds of failures a little bit because they cost us time. Other failures or the fear of them can tie us in knots.
I soon solved my laundry “failure.” When I smoothed out another small piece, three or four handwritten letters popped off the page.
Oh! Those bits in the washer were the remains of a sweet note my friend Jody wrote to me on the back of a piece of scrap paper (obviously the writing on the back included the word “failure”). After a particularly tough Sunday with my Mother, Jody had written a kind encouragement about Mother’s health and our stress. I had laid her note on the dryer and been encouraged by it again and again. The note had slipped into the washer with my clothes! A solved mystery made the task of bit-picking much more pleasant — and the memory of Jody’s thoughtfulness blessed me again.
On April 3, 1910, former President Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech in Paris. One section of that speech is often quoted:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
I love that message. I am so proud of you. You are a woman who tries and tries again and tries again. You are a brave homeschooling heroine.
One problem with feelings of failure and fear of failure is that those feelings are centered in ourselves. Jesus said:
Abide in Me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself
unless it abides in the vine,
so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
I am the vine, you are the branches;
he who abides in Me and I in him,
he bears much fruit,
for apart from Me you can do nothing.
John 15:4-5
You want your teaching to bear fruit. You want your parenting to bear fruit. You want your children to bear fruit. The only place to bear fruit that lasts forever is in Jesus. In Jesus we bear much fruit.
God offers us forgiveness in Jesus, the opportunity to abide in Him, the strength to get up and try again, and a listening ear for our prayers. We can trust our Father in Heaven who never fails.
Whom have I in heaven but You?
And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
Psalm 73:25-26