I’m actually pretty embarrassed to be talking about this.
But I don’t have much to lose. You’ve seen the inside of my heart, the inside of my van, and my face without makeup, so here goes.
I really screwed up last week.
I lead a small group ladies Bible Study at my church and have been teaching this same group for three years. It’s my stewardship and to be very honest, I’m honored and humbled that people trust me with things like this with things like that in my past.
Leading up to our meeting on Thursday I was distracted, busy and just plain tired. I felt like my life was disheveled and my mind seemed to tear whenever I thought about something new. Heart reflected life and crazy mind reflected crazy days.
I worked on my lesson but treated it like a thing-to-do on a thing-to-do-list. I prepared. I prayed (some). And I packed it away when I was “done.”
And I gave myself an I-can-wing-it pat on the back.
Huge mistake.
I cannot wing something like this.
Even if it is a small group in a small church for a simple hour on a Thursday. It isn’t small but I treated it like it was.
Let’s just say, metaphorically speaking, I got my metaphorical rear end handed to me on a metaphorical platter.
Ouch.
I knew it was going to be sticky when the I realized that the first Scripture I read outloud I didn’t completely understand. I ended up misquoting something, I didn’t do the proper research and I figured out 20 minutes into the lesson that this topic was so much deeper and LESS straightforward than I’d assumed.
I failed them.
The ladies were amazing, however, and forgave me as I bumbled through my apologies mid-lesson.
I went home and sent them each an email asking again for their forgiveness, promising to rely on the One who actually wrote the book and less on myself, and to treat this time and these women with the respect that they deserve. I apologized for failing them.
Sigh.
I’m not a strange to failure, but this is the first time (pretty sure) I’ve failed in this area. I cringe when I think that I allowed my crazy life to get in the way of ministry and that I allowed mySELF to get in the way of God’s working.
However, what I’m realizing today isn’t that I failed THEM, or even that I failed GOD (we do that daily, don’t we?). I’m realizing that I failed me.
I failed me because by neglecting to pray for those women last week I wasn’t able to see God answer prayer.
I failed me because by hurrying through my preparation I missed out on wisdom I might have learned.
I failed me because by underestimating the power of God’s word I underestimated His power in my own life.
I failed me because by treating something big like something small I made myself small.
But even in the middle of my debacle I heard the word grace whispered to me. Grace for me from Him. Grace for me from ME. Because I’m still learning how to do this life well, how to walk worthy of the allegiance I’ve claimed, how to allow the lens of the Kingdom to color my view of the world.
I’m sure I will fail again. Life sometimes equals failure. But I’m learning quicker from my own mistakes.
And I think that is a success.
How are you with failure? Do you give yourself grace? Do you give others grace?
Thank you so much for your honesty here. Living transparent lives is what I am teaching on this week and your experience is a great wake up call.
You are a blessing!
Kim
I rehearse it over and over again in my thoughts, attitude, and overall countenance. When I stop beating myself over the head, I finally give in to grace! But what’s weird, I should have done that quicker because after that, the issue is closed for me. It’s like a habit or routine, however it happens. I cannot even say we are too hard on ourselves, but I will say, I understand. Oh, do I ever! Thanks for a fabulous blog!
I think I have an easier time accepting grace from others and God, but have a really hard time giving myself grace. A few weeks ago in church, we had a really good teaching, and God gave me a different thought about it (which I wrote about here…. http://themanyfacesofsarahhankins.blogspot.com/2010/02/thought-provoking-tuesday_16.html )….and I’m really convinced that God wanted me to raise my hand and share what he’d laid on my heart when we had question/answer time. Now, let me clarify something, I hate speaking in front of people, I’m afraid to do it most times. God has been slowly working on it, but needless to say I justified any excuse that came into my head so that I would feel better about not speaking in front of a couple hundred of people. Since then, I know that God was disappointed, but has extended wondrous grace and mercy to me. I just think about it and I cringe…I mean the fact that I didn’t do what he wanted me to and trusted that he knew what he was doing. Oh, and of course the little “lizard” that tries to sit on my shoulder never lets me forget either, and screams my failure into my ear to try to get me off my path God has for me. So, yes, I struggle with extending grace to myself even when God’s forgiven me….but, I’m thinking he’s working on that, even if I’m at the stage where I have to remind myself over and over that I’m okay and I don’t need to hold on to my failure. Great thoughts, Thanks!
My friend, Tracee, just did a little series on her blog about failing. You might be interested in reading it. It starts with this post http://traceepersiko.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/redefined-failure/.
Thank you Stacey
I love you, my dear friend.
The older I get (and the more failures I experience) the more grace I extend. Why couldn’t I have been like this when I was in my 20′s and 30′s? Only God knows the answer to that.
And I’ve recently experience the failure you just admitted to. Taking my responsibility to teach other women way too lightly. Winging it doesn’t work. I know.
Ugh. I’ve so done that. Relied on my “I can wing it with no problem” ability and fallen flat on my face. Sad thing is I’ve never gone back and admitted that to anyone that it affected.
I have an extremely hard time extending grace to myself. And am learning how to extend it to others. I still haven’t perfected it or come even close to what I wish I reflected.
But I’m trying.
Wonderful post today Sarah. Thanks so much for sharing.
Thanks Mary!
i’m learning to give grace to me from me. if, when i can do this, i can extend it to others.
This post made me realize, that although I am hard on myself I do give myself grace in the end–it may take a while, but I give it. That being said, I don’t do such a good job extending grace to others. That is an area I definitely need work on…among an array of others being the human I am.
Could you please pray for me? I’ve had this feeling that I’m being called to do something at church…just not sure what it is yet.
Janene- of course! I’d be honored.
God has a way of giving us amazing things to do when we are willing. And you are willing! I can’t wait to find out what God has for you!!
Keep us posted.
Sarah,
you wrote words i needed to hear today on a lot of levels…
thank you & bless you for extending the grace of your “failure” to us all!
too often i offer “grace” to others while not extending it to myself…which makes me wonder how real the “grace” i extend to others really is…we’re to love others as we love ourselves…which makes me wonder if i already am…
kinda scary…
food for my thots & prayers…
much love,
dad
Sarah, thank you for sharing your heart. Your group is blessed to have you and you are blessed to have them.
As for ‘grace’…i’m afraid that i am a work in progress. I like to think that i offer grace, but do i really? And no, offering grace to myself is HARD…
You have given me much to think about today…
thank you Isabel. and we are all works in progress. i feel more like i’m “in progress” every day.
sigh.
Oh – I can so relate. You’re human. I’ve done this too and as someone who is just now going in to do her Bible Study and prepare for this week – I’m thankful for the focus your post gives me.
giving myself grace when i fail is one of the hardest things for me to do. thank you for showing me how beautifully it can be done.
What a fantastic post. Your honesty is so encouraging. This is something I’ve struggled with for many years. I tend to me so hard on myself that people will scold me and tell me to lighten up. I never see failure as a option.
thanks, jason.
people tell me to lighten up too. =)
Great post, Sarah. I appreciate the honesty so much. I beat myself up. I used to be as hard on people as I was on myself though. I learned how to forgive and extend grace to others. But I sort of stopped at extending that same grace to myself. I play my mistakes over and over again like a broken record. When I think about what I’ve been forgiven for and the favor He has given me, I’m not sure why I am still like that with myself?! But I definitely don’t want to be.
Honestly, I tend to expect a log of grace, but I’m a truth-teller…so my ability to give it isn’t as great. On the “truth in love’ balance I lean way more toward truth than love. it’s an act of obedience to submit my words to Christ before speaking them and I don’t always get it right. I have high expectations for the people in my life and when they fail I hurt…big time. i can see this pattern over and over again…
God, in His kindness, leads me to repentance.
PS…I think it’s pretty cool that your dad reads your blog
me too!
I think I’ve heard God laughing out loud at me before. Often.
One instance similar to yours that I can think of:
I was hosting a Bible Study at my home and my neighbor asked if she could join 3 weeks in (why I hadnt’ asked her, I don’t know). I told her I would have to ask the group (b/c I personally knew that one of the girls had just experienced a miscarriage and hadn’t shared that with the group, yet, etc and didn’t want there to be any shaky ground). Sure enough, they all said they would love to have her join and the first night she was there was when my precious friend talked about her recent miscarriage.
My neighbor was sitting right next to her and witnessed to everyone about her infertility struggles (that I didn’t know about), miscarriages and how she found God through it all.
To think I was trying to “protect” them from each other! Oh, how God is so much more detail-oriented than I give him credit for.
Oh, and I have miserably failed to prepare tons of times- including- not prepping videos, etc. I think I could be a poster girl for grace.
Love you- xoxo,
I LOVE THIS POST!!! Thank you for jumping in my head and writing down some of my most intimate thoughts.. how’d you do that?
Grace.. Can’t live without it.
I know that those sweet women you are blessed with are grateful for your honesty and grace every day.
I sure am.
D
This is beautiful and it brought tears to my eyes – God’s grace is a beautiful, indescribable thing!
Failure scares me. I let the fear of failure keep me from doing things far too often. In fact dealing with “insecurities” has been heavy on my heart for the past couple months and I just blogged a bit about it last night – reading this post today was a true encouragement!