So I was considering titling this post "Oops" but decided to go with a slightly classier, more enigmatic title which can also be turned around to make a bigger point. I suppose the inspiration for this post is my rather unfortunate lapse. I was supposed to be posting an item of thankfulness every day on facebook but when I got busy with the holidays I sort of stopped. And the reason its taken this long to get back into it is actually the story of my life. Namely the reason is that I find failure to be crippling. Not total failures mind you. When I have totally failed at something I am good at sweeping up the broken pieces and figuring out the next step. In that sense I am resilient. It is partial failures that I haven't learned to cope with and it seems like the smaller it is, the less likely I will respond appropriately.
To put some flesh on this I will give an example. Last year I got a bit behind in my nursing class. A funeral, some computer trouble and some good old fashioned procrastination lead me to get behind on my clinical paperwork. No problem. My clinical instructor was very forgiving and merciful and understanding and told me to just make it up by next week. Very reasonable and not really that hard. But the failure to get it in was weighing on me a bit and made the procrastinator in me worse. It kept snowballing until I was 6 weeks behind, couldn't think of anything else and yet couldn't force myself to sit down and just do it. The further ramification of this was it effectively distracted me from the massive case study paper that I had to do. Anything associated with nursing just reminded me of my failures in clinical so I kept finding excuses not to think about that course. In the end I DID get my clinical paperwork in but I was unable to complete the case study. Without that paper I was shooting for a solid C and anything below C+ is failing. The irony is that if I had even half-assed the paper and got maybe a 50% on it I would have passed the course. I'm not exaggerating I run those numbers in my head all the time. But my relatively small initial failure effectively paralyzed me. And then I got to have the lovely discussion with my faculty of where do we go from here.
By the grace of God I did something somewhere somehow to endear myself to them. I had not 1 but 3 faculty members working with me on this and we came up with the best solution being a medical leave of absence for the semester which prevented the failure from becoming part of my record in any way. I did have some strong signs of clinical depression so the medical leave could be justified. Once my failure last year became complete I found it much easier to deal with, my depression improved, and I saw hope in the distance. I got my act together. And I gave myself an entire extra year of school. One of my consolations at the time was thinking well at least I won't see my former classmates too often to remind me of the situation. Wrong. I get nearly daily reminders of the fact that I slipped back a graduating year. Following this rabbit trail (a phrase I've picked up since I started attending MSCC) the reminders have actually been very sanctifying. Instead of increasing my sense of shame, I have come to accept what happened, forgive myself, and move on. I can actually see God working through my failure. Every now and then I catch glimpses of the plan unfolding and I remind myself that God is sovereign. If he can take a murdering, stuttering, coward like Moses and shake a world power to its foundations what are my problems and failures to Him? Did it surprise him that I didn't get my work done? It didn't even truly surprise me.
When I started this post I was not intending it to become what you have already read. I was intending to apologize for my error and post some items which I am thankful for and move on. As I was writing something occurred to me. I believe in grace for sin and freedom from my guilt and shame and yet so often I DO NOT LIVE LIKE I BELIEVE IT. The system of law is so deeply ingrained in us that it feels wrong to live according to grace. When I missed a day before I would do 2 items to make up for it. Having missed a couple weeks I was going to do a blog devoted to making up all the missed days. I wasn't going to do this because doing it would give me joy I was going to do it for a sense of absolution. Which is stupid. So you know what? I am not going to do that. Not because I am not thankful or because I couldn't think of enough things to make up the lack but because thankfulness is ultimately about my relationship with God and I am not going to reduce how I deal with God to being an obligatory chore done out of guilt.
Good talk. God be with you till we meet again.
