I.
So I've learned a few things about failure in my short life. The hard way of course (I mean let's be real here, how exactly do you learn about failure the not-hard way? You have to experience it to know anything about it). There are so many different kinds of failure: there's the personal kind, where you let yourself down; there's outward failure, in which you let the people around you down, be that your family, employer, friends, whoever; and then there's just flat-out, complete and utter failure, and it doesn't matter who got let down because the world is literally ending, the light's gone. (I've yet to experience utter failure, but if lives are like movies, I'm guaranteed to feel it somewhere around the middle/second half of my life - that's the climax of course, right?)
I've learned plenty about the little failures, like getting a bad grade on an exam (College and I have had a rocky relationship; I only make good grades in classes I really like and there isn't an abundance of those. I really take for granted the fact that I live in a place where education is so accessible because I'm incredibly lazy. That's another reason I decided to take the semester off.) I've also learned a lot about what it's like to let your parents down in numerous ways (college, man...). I've learned to grow numb to failing grades and I've learned to stop and think about what I'm about to do (often before proceeding to do what I know is wrong anyway, having rashly justified it in some shabby way). I've learned what it feels like to just sit in what feels like a dark pit, thinking about all your failures and having zero motivation to get up and move forward because you don't even really know where to go.
But I've also learned that failure is not a prison, that it holds no power over us. Experiencing failure allows you to be free in ways you would think are too beautiful to be a result of something so painful. Failure provides you with the freedom to do things without fear of failing. It's kind of ironic, really. The more you fail, the less you are afraid to fail. It's almost like failure befriends you and you're able to live without the constant fear of it. Mind you, the ability to be afraid of failure will probably never leave you. But what I'm saying is that if you really let it affect you and you take it all in and you push forward, it can free you. J.M. Barrie always makes me feel better about myself: "We are all failures, at least the best of us are."
II.
I've been thinking a lot lately about happiness, and I've been reminded of how seriously, probably annoyingly, innocently happy I was a few years ago. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still a supremely happy girl, I've got a lot to be thankful for. But now I think I'm a bit more cynical. To support that old cliche, I've seen a lot more and been exposed to a lot more, and a lot of that lot more ain't that beautiful. I mean, people are broken and they do hurtful things, and that sucks to have to witness. And then there are those times you get confronted by new things and (this echoes back to part of that failure bit) you stumble a little and you become someone you would have never expected for a little while. And those things stay with you. They weigh you down and slowly infect everything; they become that little twangy afterthought, that voice that quietly tells your heart to behave itself and your mind to stop soaring.
So I've been wallowing in this little puddle I've made all week, badgering myself and wondering why I lost that freer happiness I used to have, and thinking I'm some horrible person and I'll never get to be like that again, I'll always have a little chip on my shoulder. Which is completely anti-active. The more you think about unhappiness, the more you become unhappy. If you think about how awful of a person you are, you stop trying to be better, assuming that you'll never succeed. My best friend reminded me that my happiness (and all my emotions, really) are kind of irrelevant (here I add though that they are still important, because they are what make us human), but anyway happiness is not the point, living for Christ is the point, and when I am living for Him and communing with Him daily, I get His Joy, which far surpasses my simple happiness.
So I got two lessons regarding happiness/Joy/living this week:
1. "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me." Galatians 2:20. Kind of hard-hitting, right? Happiness aside, my whole point of living is to live by faith and glorify God. Which is cool, because it removes the need to put Sarah, this girl I don't always think is very cool or good, on the stage and instead I get to put the most beautiful and creative Being on stage. And if that isn't enough, the Bible promises that if I'm doing that, I get Christ's infinite peace and Joy in return. Basically it's the most epic win-win situation you could ever be presented with. So why is it so hard?
2. Do you know how many times the phrase "the Joy of the Lord is your strength" is used throughout the Bible? It's like back in the day it was their way of saying "don't worry, you'll get through this." Which is pretty cool; it makes saying "you'll get through this" look pretty puny and entirely inadequate. So that's what I've been trying to rely on all week, and what I'm guessing will be a pretty big part of my life this semester. When I'm tired and unmotivated, the world is weighing down on me and telling me I'm not enough and I'm not doing enough, and I don't really know how to get where I'm headed: the Joy of the Lord is my strength.
III.
I was thinking as I was procrastinating finishing this post and trying to gather my thoughts and I realized something about myself. I'm always discovering things about myself. Which is kind of ironic to me because it's like you would think that we would know all about ourselves, but I'm always surprising myself with my thoughts. And I think it's beautiful that the God who created me already knows all this stuff and here I am, having inhabited this body and mind and soul for almost 20 years (which is kind of a long time), and there's still so much I don't know about myself. But I digress. I realized that I am the kind of person who has to be ministering to be ministered to. Or at least, to get the most out of being ministered to. The Bible even says it: "Faith without works is dead." (James 2:17) Which can sound pretty harsh to someone who maybe grew up in the Bible belt, where everyone is a Christian because everyone goes to Sunday mornin' church and everyone believes God made the world and Jesus really did die on the cross. (And by "everyone" of course I mean the majority of the southern population.) So I'm kind of feeling stagnant in my faith life and I'm starting to think it's because I'm not really doing anything to serve anyone. Alright so I've made the diagnosis and now it's time for treatment, which is the hard part because it means I've got to get up off my butt and find somewhere to get my hands a little dirty. So if you're out there and you're reading this, could you maybe add me to your list and pray that I could get a little motivation?
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