The Potential in Failure

Dear 12th Mile community…

Louise wants the A+.

It is a joke in the Gibson house. Truthfully, though, there has been more fact than fiction in that statement!

Running corrected my attitude!

I was introduced to my beautiful sport in 2010. By 2013, it had become a passionate hobby. My focus was on building strength and endurance.  Little did I know that I was setting myself on a path to learn how to fail! Sadly, I had never really learned this before. Not truly! My sports chiro-doctor recognized the need to reveal the truth about the value of failure and began teaching me about it through Sport. In a 2014 email, he wrote this to me:

The brain learns from failure…without failing, we have no signal for improvement. So, embrace the imperfect. The struggle is what produces the awesomeness… Dr. Jason Ross

Embrace failure as a positive? And so, beginning with my doctor’s statement, running became one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. I was 47 years old. The lessons learned quickly went beyond my sport.  God used them to teach me about life!  Now, 15 years later, I can firmly testify that nearly every physical, athletic truth I learned had a direct spiritual parallel.  It was stunning!

Just this morning, I asked my runner friend Scary Mary (she’s that good) what failure has taught her as a runner. She had this answer: Wisdom. Closely linked to that was another word: Grace! Grace toward herself in the process of trying again. And because of the failure, she declared that she now possessed a hard-won discernment to do something different next time.

Life is like this. Its resistance training is hard! There are weights we face that feel trivial, perhaps annoying, but we embrace them. We do the lifting required. We move on. But there are challenges we face that take our breath away. This is the stuff of which strength building is made. Our growth is messy. We may even fail along the way. Author Eric Greitens expresses this in his book Resilience when he states: Those who are excellent at their work have learned to comfortably coexist with failure…Mastery lives quietly atop a mountain of mistakes. (Greitens, Eric.  Resilience, p.46)

Growth. Resilience. Perseverance. Hard-fought precious treasures!

Failures in running did something for me that no other experience in life has ever done: to see the potential in failure! I found greater grace to humbly try again, to love more fully, to forgive more wholeheartedly, and to serve more faithfully. As hard as it still is, I try to remember that the failure (the miss, the setback) is not about guilt and condemnation. Looking up to God, it is about conviction, redirection and growth. Not easy. This truth hit hard for me this week! Writing this to you has painful “skin in the game” for me today! I, we, never stop learning…ever!

After that first Easter, Jesus had some personal business to do with one of his closest friends, one of his disciples: Peter! Peter had denied Jesus openly….not once, not even twice, but three times.  What? Jesus had declared Peter “the Rock” upon whom he would build his church. But this “Rock” had denied even knowing him. Simply put: Peter had failed!

Nevertheless, Jesus met him in that heavy, guilt-ridden place. After a private conversation on the beach (John 21), Jesus loved and forgave Peter, commissioning him to serve the Church. And Peter did!!! Forty days later (Pentecost), Peter openly declared to an international crowd the Truth about the One he had formerly denied even knowing! What a transformation! I believe his failure was a critical part of his growth! It led to his complete commitment to carry out his God-given commission.

God is still in that same business today! Even in our mistakes, there is always the possibility of new strength to be claimed tomorrow! He is shaping you, and he is shaping me for an awesome purpose…in our next best step.

Lamentations: 3: 22-23 …The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (ESV)

Romans 8: 28…And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Look Up to Him for Your Next Best Step…

With Love

Louise Ann