Talked with a colleague today. She is feeling down, questioning her call, wondering if she is a failure at parish ministry. I tried to reassure her but I know that she will have to weather these feelings, dig deep within to clarify her call and to examine designations like “success” and “failure.”

When expectations aren’t met and goals are not accomplished, it is easy to judge oneself as a failure. This is true of most people in most situations. My oldest likes to remind me of Thomas Edison’s claim that he learned thousands of ways NOT to make a light bulb before achieving his goal.

Success feels so much better but we truly learn more from our failures. Whatever hasn’t gone as you hoped or tried for recently, I hope you can learn something useful from the experience. We fail sometimes, but we are not failures!

In wisdom, grace & hope,
Rev. Ruth