Too Proud Not to Tell

Intelligent, capable, self-assured, with a healthy dose of humor and humongus heart...these are the qualities that attracted me first.  Laughter has saturated our days and lightened my heart on many occasions.  A great teacher, always patient when I hard-headedly cling to my self-defeating purposes, he is my rock, my best friend.

Following his lead has taken me over roads I would not have traveled on my own, adventures better left to the adventurers!  He has brought me out of my shell, nourished and gently prodded me to take a risk and enjoy the ride.

But never have I loved him more than today, love the man he has become in God's church!  I watched and listened as he spoke kind, loving words to a grieving family, words of encouragement and hope of a completely trustworthy Lord, celebrating the life of a man he knew not well, but loving him and his family he spoke from his heart.

His faith encourages me.  His growth encourages me.  His teaching inspires me to greater knowledge of God's Word.  His love for me envelopes and protects, but it is his love of the Lord that fills my heart.  Thank you, Lord, for this husband, friend and lover of You!

Mess-upper!

"Failure" must come early in a child's life.  Learning to do so many things necessarily means failure occurs often, but the urge to succeed is great and failures become a part of life.  Normal.  Expected.  Accepted.

Then childhood is left behind and the young adult is expected to blossom and thrive...leaving failures in the past as the urge to excel, impress and surpass takes on a life of its own.  Failing ceases to be a learning experience, but something to hide, deny and cover up.  Shameful.

Disappointing my dad was conflicting as I struggled to maintain my independence...making mistake after mistake after mistake.  Admitting error to a parent at any age, knowing the heartache you brought them, is humilating at best.  But there is no eraser of life, no magic to make mistakes disappear, no time to rectify.

Mess-upper was a nickname I cared not for.  But heard enough, the image sticks, looming above my head at every turn.  As a mother raising her child with no experience, a wife trying to please her husband, as an employee striving for perfection, a friend trying to keep the peace...as a servant trying to please God, the fear of failing can immobilize oneself into believing any effort is thwarted before it's begun!

The fear of failure becomes part of your breath, tainting efforts as it resides in the recesses of your mind, drawing you away from new opportunities before they've begun.  How to justify my failures...how to lose this mess-upper stigma from the fragile skin of my soul? 

"Perhaps the hardest lesson we learn from failure is that we aren't as great as we thought we were." (Warren Wiersbe)   Ahhh, there it is!  Pride, and injured at that, can demolish the strongest of desires, the meekest of intentions, and  the sincere attitude of gratitude disintegrates.  The cloak of perfection slips and reality stands tall.

Peter was a failure.  He failed Christ at least three times.  He suffered the agony of his Lord predicting and witnessing his failure.

 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.  (Luke 22:61-62 ESV)

Can you even imagine the horror and shamefulness that must have enveloped Peter as he watched the Lord being tortured and crucified within those next couple of days, the dispair he must have felt?  Yet Christ appeared to him after his resurrection, giving him the command to "feed his sheep."  He trusted him to spread His gospel and entrusted lives to Peter's undeniable love of Christ to prevail.  It became not about Peter but only about Christ.

Failures may still stalk my path, but somewhere the Lord is working them for good.  It is no longer about me being a mess-upper, it is Christ working in me to deny myself at all.  I am freed from failure.

"Failing is not a disgrace unless you make it the last chapter of your book." 
- Jack Hyles