“Why do you feel like a failure?” The question was gentle but direct. 

“I think I believe that Finley’s progress is tied to my performance. So if she does not progress that means I am failing.”

“Heather, she has a brain injury that is unpredictable. How can you hold yourself to that standard? You would not ever hold another parent to that standard.” 

I took a breath. Taking in what Matt was saying. He was right. I would never say to someone else what I was saying over myself. 

Life taught me if one applies themselves, progress should be measurable. Failure was a lack of progress or minimal progress pointed to something that needed to be reworked or rethought or reinvented. If I worked hard I would progress. Practice makes progress. 

So if I worked hard at the daily therapies Finley needs she should progress. That is how the life math worked in my brain. But she wasn’t or the progress was so minimal that an untrained eye could not see it. Which left me wondering where was I failing? 

Her therapists would encourage me that I was doing plenty, more than other parents. Which left me angrily wondering, “then why are their kids progressing and mine is not? Why was my hard work not paying off?!”

I cried these questions to God and to Matt. There were no good answers but there was comfort in being seen and heard. 

I am somewhere in the middle or maybe the beginning of reworking my relationship with failure. Redefining how I interpret failure trips me up and catches me off guard. I easily fall back into old ways of thinking. At one point Matt advised me to think of Finley has a good friend’s child and then talk to myself how I would talk to that mom. When I can remember, that line of thinking is helpful and freeing, but it takes practice. 

My hope is that someday, most likely many years from now, I will have a different relationship with failure. One that recognizes left to myself I could see failure as a strong force that can derail, shame and break me into believing I have nothing to offer. Believing that with practice I can see failure as an opportunity to grow, opportunity to learn, opportunity to push forward, and an opportunity to connect with other people, despite results measurable to the human eye. 

In moments like these I see failure offering a beautiful brokenness that reminds us that we are not perfect. We are in great need of the beautiful, gracious, perfection of God. That we are wired for perfection as humanity was created in the perfection of Eden and we are moving towards a perfect, heavenly home that every soul longs for. 

What seems like a failure today, may be a protection in the future. Where failure writes “rejected” in our story, may it be rewritten as “release” for something greater, for something better, for something that we may not have been able to write ourselves.