When Failure Lurks Nearby

Today is a repost from the archives of the old blog. It’s been five years since I originally wrote it. My kids are teenagers now and life looks a lot different in some ways. I know I’ve grown and matured in many areas of life. And, yet, I feel that foreboding sense of failure lurking around the corner often. In parenting teenagers, in caring for my most cherished relationships, in being the wife of the Pastor, in my new business venture, in teaching the Bible to hungry women, in juggling a busy home, in developing an inward life. A nagging fear of failure always seems at hand. And, yet – Jesus.

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Failure. The day has barely begun and already it lies heavy on my chest. The hurrying, the nagging, the yelling. I’m exasperated; they’re discouraged. It’s not the way I want to send them off to school. But, somehow it happens that way more often than not.

Maybe tomorrow will be different. I’ll make sure my own heart is ready before the day begins. I’ll pack lunches ahead of time. I’ll make sure they don’t sleep in. I’ll do this; I’ll do that. Tomorrow will be different.

But tomorrow comes and it’s not different. I don’t follow-thru on my plans or we find forgotten homework that needs finished or the kids begin to bicker about who should brush teeth first. And, before I know it, belittling words are flying out of my mouth and I’m nagging about the chore chart or yelling at them for yelling at each other.

The foreboding sense of failure comes quickly as I recognize the signs of another morning gone bad. I feel like I’m going to suffocate under the weight of it. The lies rush in, attacking my insecurities and causing me to question my worth.

Will tomorrow ever be different? And the day after that? Will I ever follow-thru on my good intentions? When it comes right down to it, will it really be any different?

I’m not talking about manufacturing a cheery morning. Anybody can do that for a day or two. Jesus once likened it to whitewashing tombs – the outside is cleaned up but the inside is still full of decay. That is not what I want. My people-pleasing heart has been there and it’s not pretty. It’s full of striving and pride and, eventually, broken promises.

This smothering disappointment that I feel can really only lead to two places.

Option #1: It can lead me to trying harder tomorrow. Maybe I’ll succeed (and then I’ll feel prideful for having it all together) or maybe I’ll fail (and then I’ll hate myself for screwing up my kids).

Or, Option #2: It can lead me to a healthy sorrow and dependence on the One who can actually stop the inward decay.

The only real answer is, as always, right there in His words to us. Lovingly breathed out by the One who understands our hearts better than we do.

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth)

Oh, it is so tempting to lose heart. But, could it be true? Could it be that somehow in all of this mess that is me, that my inner woman is being renewed day by day? That something beautiful is being born within that will give my mornings hope?

Could it be that tomorrow could be different? Not because of what I do differently (though I know my choices do matter), but because God has given me His Spirit and He is producing a treasure in this broken vessel. Even in the midst of my failure.

Could it be that I don’t have to yell when the chore chart isn’t finished… because I’m resting in what He is doing in our home. Could I really be free from these patterns that define our mornings? And the suffocating feeling that comes with them? The condemnation I put on myself and on the kids for our failures?

Could it be?

Earlier in the same letter Paul writes, “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Ahhh liberty. Sweet freedom. Maybe I can breathe again.

But wait it gets even better… “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”

Breathe it in, Shan. Deep, clean breaths. No more choking under the weight of your unmet expectations and your own disappointment with yourself. Dependence instead.

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty…”