Failure

This morning at church the message, printed in the bulletin, was supposed to be about God's abundance in our lives but the minister pointed out that sometimes what's printed on Tuesday changes by Sunday based on what he needs to speak about.  The change this morning brought the sermon to the topic of failure....an odd thing for a preacher to discuss, right?


It's not particularly uplifting to tell a congregation full of people that failure is an inevitable part of life, but that's exactly what he said.  He spoke of society's need to vilify failure, to "shroud it in silence" and relegate it to secrecy.  He spoke of how many people embark on new journeys, fully believing they'll turn out perfectly, that the fairy tale they'd planned would indeed pan out that way, but that failure is not only possible, it is certain.  But then he spoke of our failures as an opportunity for God to work miracles, to--through our failing in one way--open to us another way, one we would never have seen before had we not failed.  A better, brilliant, more perfect way than we could have ever appreciated had we not failed.


As has been the case each time I have attended this church, the message of the day has resonated with me, with things happening in my life, and not in the way that vague horoscopes resonate in their complete transparency, but in a real, applicable, tangible way.  Just last night a good friend and I were discussing failures, our own in particular.  We were trying to determine exactly why we have both reached a near identical crossroads that allows us no agency, no ability to choose, but instead asks only patience to see where the road will take us.  And then, this morning, I hear of Jacob and of Peter, both biblical powerhouses whose successes were born from their failures.  Serendipitous?  Coincidence?  Divine intervention?  Whatever you call it, I needed to hear it.


It is hard to admit to failure, past, present, or future, but we will all fail.  Spectacularly.  There is no way to escape it, but there is a way to navigate that failure.  Perhaps the job you dreamt of did not turn out the way you'd hoped, that dress you ordered online looks awful on you, the life you imagined yourself having turns out to be absolutely impossible.  At the end of the day, there is a night and in the morning a new day.  At the end of every failure, there is the white blank page of a beginning...when something falls apart, the pieces must either be destroyed or recycled.


Many days, I want to burn everything in the wake of my failures.  Set a brilliant fire and fan the flames straight on til morning when all that's left is ash and smoke and the acrid smell of what was.  Today, though, with thanks to the minister who made me see failure as a universal experience rather than an intensely painful and personal one, today I want to believe in blank page, in beginnings, and in building something new.