Failure and the pain we don't remember...

Failure is sometimes like pain. When we get hurt in life, whether it’s emotional or physical, it hurts for the time we are going through it, but as time goes on, we don't fully remember how badly it hurt or how deep the pain was. It fades over time and we recover from whatever it was that occurred in the past.

When I was a about 13, I worked on the tech crew in my high school helping with stage set up, lighting and sound. I thought it was cool, but later was told it was actually dorky - side story there.  One night we had to move a folding ping-pong table and as we began to move it, we lost our balance and the table unfolded. The problem with that is that my right hand was where the fold unfolds and I cut two fingers pretty deeply. It hurt a lot and I remember the facts of the incident well, but I can’t really recreate the pain and hurt unless I cut my fingers again (not going to try that).

Just like the ping-pong table issue, we fail in life, but don’t remember all the details later. That’s likely good, because we would just dwell on the past pains and failures and be hurt all over again. God made us so that we can move on and the pain goes away and He gives us grace for those times. The thing to be careful with, is that we don’t completely forget, so that we improve from the last time. Whenever I carry a ping-pong table now, I make sure it’s tied together or locked in the upright position, so my fingers are safe. We should all learn and grow from how we fail.

Lessons Learned: Learn from your failures and hurts in life. Don’t dwell on them, but grow from them.

Thoughts: Have you ever failed the same way twice?