Do you ever feel like a failure?  Like everything you do seems to turn out wrong or every choice you make feels like the wrong one?  Take my hand.  Sit with me for a few minutes.  I have something I want to share with you…from one “failure” to another.

We’ve just come out of a tough season.  Job loss… dreams put on hold…financial stress…the loss of a home…a sad and tear-filled move…our “nest” essentially crammed into storage PODS and driven away from us…our sweet kids trying to understand the good in it all while we try to be strong and hopeful for their sake…

It’s hard to tell your children that good things are ahead when everything seems to be going wrong. But you do it, and then you cry when no one is around because you are so heart-broken over them having to leave all their close friends behind…like brave little soldiers.

While Mike job hunted each day and went through resume-sending and endless interviews, we all soon moved in with my parents and I went back to work part time.  I cried after the first day.  Then again, I was working in a preschool and changing poopy diapers.  I felt like Joseph in prison.  Seriously, God??  Why am I even here??  For THIS?  I’m not a preschool teacher!!   “God, if you get me out of this I will forever pray for preschool teachers!!”  I quickly found another job…one that I like.

Let’s pause here to pray for preschool teachers everywhere… 😉

It felt like we were moving backwards…fast!!  BUT…here’s what I wanted to tell you.  Are you still holding my hand? 🙂  This is where it starts to get good…

I would like to tell you that in this year-LONG season I was full of unwavering faith.  But I can’t.  I’d love to tell you that not once did I doubt God’s love and goodness.  But I can’t do that. I wish I could tell you that I stood strong and fought the good fight with everything God had given me.  But again, I can’t do that.  It wouldn’t be the truth.

The truth is, it got hard.  I became so sad at times.  My way got foggy and I couldn’t see the road ahead…and it scared me.  Nothing in my life was making any sense.  I had a hard time praying…and I didn’t feel like worshipping Jesus.  I was face to face with my own faith and trust in God for the first time since Kael died…and it wavered.  The clouds were thick, and it was as if I could feel the enemy right there, breathing down my neck, continually telling me I was letting God down…and that I’d failed Him …miserably.  I even stopped blogging for a while because suddenly I felt like a hypocrite!  You can see the slide, right?  I was going down it fast.  It’s like watching a horror movie and you know the monster is in the closet but the person doesn’t see it and you want to yell out to the t.v. “Don’t go in there! There’s a monster!!”  But the person in it can’t see it lurking.

Then one day, while waiting to pick up my kids from school I had this thought.  Don’t laugh, but in some crazy instant,  God spoke and it was like I woke up!  I suddenly realized that I must be some kind of prideful delusional person to think I could go through all of this with PERFECT faith.  I mean, take a look at practically everyone in the Bible!  Everyone (except Jesus) was failing God at times too!!  Yet, in the midst of their storms or testings, the ones who decided to trust Him anyway…without seeing what was ahead…were brought into a place of blessing!  What am I doing???  It all became clear.  When did I become so PROUD?!  What madness!!!

The fog disappeared that day.

I look back and realize I learned three important things in that moment:

1. I am human…and therefore,  I fail. (Yes, I was surprised too!) 😉
2. God NEVER fails.  Not ever.
3. He loves me.  He loves me.  He loves me.  He loves me.  Still.  He loves me.

Take THAT enemy!!  Ka BAM!!!!  😉  The third one is my favorite…He loves this “perfect failure” (me) anyway!  Yay!!!  Somewhere in the storm, I’d forgotten that.  He knows we are not perfect.  HE is the perfect ONE…and it’s about HIM anyway. 🙂 The Bible says, when we are weak, He is strong!

I’m changing in this season.  I can feel it.  It’s a good thing.  The best kind of changes happen in the tough times, don’t you think?

Oh!  I can’t believe I almost forgot to tell you!!  God brought Mike a wonderful new job!  Guess when it came?  Christmas Eve! Isn’t that SO GOD???  God gives good gifts…and I have a feeling that this is just the beginning!

“…Don’t get thrown off course.  Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven.  The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.  There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle.  He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all His creatures.”  James 1:16-18