I have been feeling like I failed. Not at one particular thing. At many things at once.
And I think that is what has made the feeling so overwhelming.
There are friends I love deeply who have celebrated important moments in their lives, and I haven't shown up for them in the ways I wanted to.
I've caught myself thinking about the gifts I didn't send, the calls I didn't make, the little ways I could have said, I remembered you. I love you. I am celebrating with you.
I could explain some of it away.
I was busy.
I didn't feel financially ready to send what I wanted to send.
Life was happening.
But sometimes I don't want to explain everything away. Sometimes I want to be honest enough with myself to say, I could have done better there.And that hurts.
Then there is my business.
I have a store I believe in deeply, and every month the bills come out whether I make a sale or not. There are moments when I look at it and wonder if I'm doing this completely wrong.
Should I be advertising more?
Should I be selling harder?
Should I change direction?
Should I stop?
The difficult part is that I know what I want The Mother to become.
I don't only want someone to find a cute sweatshirt for an occasion, buy it and never think about us again. I want to build a community.
I want a mother to wear something from The Mother and remember who she is. I want her to read something I've written and feel understood. I want her to come back because this place means something to her.
I know that takes time. But knowing that doesn't make the Shopify bill feel any nicer when it arrives. 😂
Then I look around my house.
The laundry needs attention. I want the house to feel better.
The children have probably had more screen time than I wanted. I'm thinking about what everybody has been eating. There are appointments to organize and bills to sort through.
I remember the people I haven't called.
I remember the things I haven't bought.
I remember the things I said I would do.
And if I let all of those thoughts speak at the same time, they eventually arrive at one conclusion: You're failing.
Recently, though, I've been watching my children.
And I noticed something.
My children don't think they're failing.
At least not in the way I do.
I've watched one of my children try something five times and fail five times.
Then try it a sixth time.
There is no identity crisis between attempt five and attempt six. 😂
There is no sitting in the corner thinking, Maybe I'm just not the kind of person who can do this.
There is no gathering evidence from everything else that went wrong that week.
It didn't work. So they try again.
And sometimes they try again with almost the same excitement they had the first time.
That has been teaching me something I desperately need in this season of my life.
Maybe failure was never supposed to become an identity.
Maybe sometimes something simply didn't work.
Maybe sometimes I genuinely got something wrong.
Maybe I neglected something important.
Maybe I need to apologize.
Maybe I need to make the appointment.
Maybe I need to change the way I am running part of my business.
Maybe I need to send the gift late.
Maybe I need to call the friend.
Maybe I need to put my phone down, start one load of laundry and stop staring at the other six.
Maybe I even need to buy myself a decent hairbrush. 😂
But none of those things require me to conclude that I am a failure.
That distinction matters to me. Because I don't want self-compassion to become an excuse for refusing to grow.
If I haven't been the friend I want to be, I want to acknowledge that.
If something in my home needs changing, I want to change it.
If my business strategy isn't working, I want to learn.
If I'm neglecting myself, I want to notice.
But I am learning that I can correct myself without condemning myself.
My children do this naturally.
They don't seem to believe that getting something wrong makes them wrong.
And I wonder when so many of us stopped knowing that.
At what point did a failed attempt stop being information and start becoming evidence about our worth?
At what point did I haven't figured this out yet become maybe I'm not capable?
At what point did I'm struggling in this season become I'm failing at my life?
I don't know.But I know I want to unlearn it.
I want to become a little more like my children in this way.
I want to be able to look honestly at something that isn't working without being destroyed by what I see.
I want to say:
That wasn't good enough. Let me try again.
I hurt someone. Let me apologize.
I forgot. Let me remember next time.
That strategy didn't work. Let me learn another one.
I haven't made the sale yet. Let me keep building.
Not because trying guarantees that everything will happen exactly the way I imagine it.
And not because persistence means refusing to recognize when God may be redirecting me.
But because I don't want shame to be the thing that makes the decision for me.
I am a child of God. So I can bring Him the parts that are working and the parts that aren't.
I can ask for wisdom.
I can change direction.
I can rest.
I can learn.
I can begin again.
And I can trust Him with what I cannot control.
My children have taught me that another attempt doesn't have to carry the embarrassment of the last one.
You can just… try again.
Maybe with more knowledge.
Maybe with a different approach.
Maybe after asking for help.
Maybe after resting.
But you can try again.
I think adults sometimes call children fearless when really, perhaps, they simply haven't learned to make every failure mean something terrible about themselves yet.
And maybe part of growing isn't becoming harder and harder until nothing affects us.
Sometimes growth means going back for the softness we lost.
The ability to fail without hating ourselves.
The ability to be corrected without believing we are worthless.
The ability to start over without being embarrassed that the first attempt didn't work.
The ability to believe that an unfinished life is not a failed life.
So today, I am looking at the areas of my life that need me.
My home.
My family.
My friendships.
My body.
My work.
My faith.
My dreams.
And instead of gathering them together and using them as evidence against myself, I want to deal with them one at a time.
Some need action.
Some need patience.
Some need an apology.
Some need prayer.
Some need discipline.
Some need grace.
And some simply need another try.
Maybe tomorrow I will feel overwhelmed again.
I'm human. I probably will.
But I hope I remember the little people I've spent all these years believing I was supposed to teach.
Because once again, they are teaching me.
Failure can be something that happened.
It doesn't have to become who I am.
And if attempt number five didn't work?
Then, just like my children, I'll see what happens with number six.
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