When You Fail

If you know me you know that I'm afraid of failure.  No, really, I am.  It wasn't until my married life that I realized that I would rather not try and never know rather than try and risk the chance of failing and knowing that I couldn't do something.  I guess you would say I'm not much of a risk taker.  I have a track record for it.

• I've never attempted the book I always wanted to write because, well, what if I put all of that time into and nothing comes from it.  That's too big of a risk, too much of an investment. 
• I've never tried to work out hard.  What if I can't do it?
• I've never learned to play that instrument, what if I just can't cut it?
• I mean, even here recently I've found myself interested in Zumba, but seriously don't have any rhythm what-so-ever, so why would I risk the embarrassment? 

It's a viscous cycle, but a cycle that I'm trying to overcome.  I believe my 'overcoming' this fear is to face it head on, which doesn't necessarily mean just trying things that I've always wanted to do, but more-so, trying them and failing.  Tasting failure will allow me to see that it's not that bad.  Then getting up and trying again until I succeed may just make me much more confident.

Which brings me to this.  I have failed and failed miserably.  The last 7 weeks or so have been great.   They've been weeks of learning and frustration, weeks of joy and elation, and weeks of sickness and healing.  Overall - they've been busy, very busy.  So busy, that, in the last 7 weeks, I've made it to church twice, and have only been able to sit through the service once.  When you have three weeks of healing (as requested by the dr.) and two weeks of sickness (blasted allergies), it makes it difficult to be there... and I'm feeling it spiritually. 

Not that I'm expecting the church to be my spiritual nourishment, I'm not naive enough to think that I should get my spiritual 'meat' from the church, but my spiritual life at home has been sparse too.  With so much responsibility on my shoulders with Ansley, Bryton, the house, meals, etc, my quiet time has virtually become non-existent.  The little bit of time with Jesus I get is when B and I are listening to music in the morning, which isn't any overly spiritual experience in and of itself, but it is a reminder of what I'm missing. 

It's fair to say that I miss Jesus.  And thus I've failed.  But this time the failure doesn't run me the other direction, it doesn't keep me from trying, but it makes me more persistent to get in and get it done.  It may be awhile before I make every church service again (whose idea was an 8 o'clock service geared towards young families?) for awhile due to sickness and such, but, by golly, I am going to make my quiet time and my church time as often as possible.