Dealing with Failure

In mid February, just as I was facing three of the busiest weeks of my winter, I made a crazy promise to myself. I decided to write something here for thirty straight days. And I began.

There were a few decent posts. There were several days when there was little inspiration, but I wrote anyway. It was an exercise I'd been encouraged to try, and so having made the promise, and I kept going.

A few days ago, I passed the halfway point, and having overcome a few fairly formidable obstacles to get there, I was pretty sure I'd make it. That was until I didn't.

The Weekend
On Thursday, I drove five hours north and began an intensive three days. We finished the first night just before midnight. But I managed to get the post out during dinner hour.

Friday was a twenty hour work day. We finished at two AM Saturday Morning. However, during a brief break in the afternoon, I tapped in a couple of short paragraphs, and fulfilled my duty...poorly.

Good place for a question. Is a thirty day writing exercise truly beneficial if you are writing drivel? Not sure. But write I did. Thus, through Friday the string was intact.

Failure
Yesterday morning, after four hours of sleep, I moved with passion into the final, and most important morning of the event I was working. A lifetime of commitment to ministry, trumped a thirty day commitment to write.

Doing ministry over the weekend became my sole, and my soul focus. Fifty hours after arriving at the event site, I got in my car and headed for home. And then I began to refocus on today's ministry.

As I drove home through a heavy snow, I prayed and talked through my Sunday message and some logistics of the today's service with my wife. I made a few phone calls, and even pulled the car into an internet hot spot where my wife could email a file to someone standing by at the church.

When I got home, I took a turn at vacuuming the last of some water from the basement floor, then schlepped my bag upstairs, pulled out my prayer book and finished the day. Sleep hit me like a long longed-for embrace and the night flew by in sweet rest.

Saturday had passed, and no post was sent, nor was one thought of.

Success
And today, my thirty day goal is toast. My writing is most likely the same as it was in mid-February when I began this journey. But the calling I promised myself to when I was a teenaged boy is still intact.

When we fail at something in life, what should we do you? Quit? Claim that we indeed are failures? I don't think so. When failures come in life, they are not final, unless you choose to quit.

See you tomorrow.