How I Feel About My Failure

Failure: nonperformance of something due, required, or expected; lack of success.

Check.

For a while, the school at which I was student teaching was my Nineveh. As in every morning when God sent me there, I felt like running in the opposite direction. More accurately, I didn’t feel like running at all, I just wanted to lay in the bed and pretend I didn’t hear His call. My friend (who also trained there) and I affectionately renamed the school The Belly of the Whale, and just as Jonah lay in his big fish, I lay in bed pondering all the ways God had answered my prayers and I showed my gratitude by fighting obedience.

It got so bad that I was ready to quit. My anxiety had manifested itself physically, sending me from the bed to the toilet and back….frequently. Let’s call it a virus. From satan. Either way, I was convinced life had no purpose and I would be a street vendor selling incense to buy books on my Kindle. [Cue violin for first world woes.]

In reality, though, my fear of failure was overpowering. I joke about the street vendor, but I was afraid of not being able to make it through. I was afraid of calling my mother and telling her there was something else that “just didn’t work out.” I was afraid of what all my friends would think...especially the ones who are already teachers...about me just not being able to cut the bill. I was afraid of what my old co-workers would think about me quitting my job to…sit at home.

I feared others. But I didn’t fear what God thought of me. And that is where I failed.

Luckily, He loves me enough to have placed incredible people in my life even before this journey began to speak truth and love into my soul. One of the friends I made during training (and when I say we were destined to be friends, basically if one of us was a male we would date) challenged me to the core.

"This is hard. This is so hard. But this is about obedience. Sometimes, you just have to get through each hour individually, you just have to get up and walk. You just have to." 

And she was right. So, I got up, cried my last of many tears, and walked. I walked into the school (looking the hottest of messes!), I walked into the class, and I taught. And I got through each hour, and I got through each day, and God never left.

Sometimes, the hardest part of faith comes not when we’re waiting for God to do something but when He is waiting for us.

So I taught. And I learned. And I interviewed. And I got a job. And I controlled a class that had no previous behavior management. And I had to calm students down who never even raised their hands before as they yelled out answers. It was incredible. Other teachers in the department consistently made remarks on the difference in that classroom.

And then, without even a warning (as other trainees received), the program told me my time was up. I did not have the scores to be recommended for a position in CMS.

Wait, what?

I was re-assigned in the second week of training, my partner dropped the program because our “cooperating” teacher was nothing short of an [eccentric soul] with a short attention span who would rather do anything than help us create lesson plans and teach us how to teach, consistently interrupting my evaluations, and my students still succeeded.

How dare you tell me my scores don’t yield recommendation the week before I am to start my official Lateral Entry position?
Because while data doesn’t tell everything, numbers don’t lie.

And the numbers showed that I had failed.

But this short time later, I wasn’t afraid of what others would think of me. I feared God.

I may not have passed TC criteria, but I finished the program. I may not have all Fast Start Skills or Power Techniques down, but I have built relationships with students and teachers alike that will carry me much farther than a set of scores. I persevered when the devil was pushing against me. I obediently followed God when I wanted to give up.

A title doesn’t dictate my worth. From God alone I receive my value. 

If my purpose this past month and a half was just to meet the people I met, that is a blessing in itself. I now have resources in every area of that school ready to write me a recommendation if needed; I have incredible new friends to share with, pray with, and continue to receive and give support; I loved students who literally cursed me out and told me they hated me and it was the most filling love I have experienced in a while; I was one of many of God’s children who got to share several conversations with one of the teachers who has been an atheist for two years and is now searching again.

And God, our good God, blessed me with even more!

He gave me the option of giving up and the chance to fight back -- with Him on my side.

He gave me the opportunity to spend weekends and holidays traveling with my significant other and worshipping together at a place we both feel we can call home.

He provided for me over and over and over...transportation, shelter, food, clothes.

I have learned from past experiences how to be a survivor, but He showed me the difference between surviving and persevering.

I am so, so blessed.

Beyond grateful for the lessons learned, the people met, the faith stretched and the faithfulness experienced.

This “failure,” though, this setback, reminds me how much God is in control. God opened some incredible doors, because I definitely wouldn’t have gotten as far as I did without Him, but I think He opened them to remind me what He can do.

Because here’s the thing...even though I know that God literally pulled me (kicking and screaming) through the program, even though I know He placed specific people in my path for constant encouragement, support and TRUTH, at the end of the day, I was still proud of myself for rocking my assessments, rocking my interview and securing a position in CMS before any of the other student teachers in my department. I never shared that pride -- in fact I kept the fact that I was hired a secret for a while -- but make no mistake that sickening pride was present.

And the advice I cling to from dear Nichole’s song* to her sweet daughter ripple through my heart:

Hold on tight with open hands. 

I may have championed every other assessment, but somehow my scores still didn’t add up. And then God removed my contracted position just as quickly as He presented it.

While my incredible support system is ready to go to war for me right now, I can honestly say I am totally at peace. Because we are on this journey together and He is teaching me something every single day. And only when I remove my independence and rely wholly on His holiness do I have the ability to recognize the lessons.

He has something far greater for me than I imagined. He has another place for me than a privileged, well-served school in Cornelius. It may not even be another school right now, but it is something.

So, what do you do when you FAIL?

You stand on FAITH, my friends.

STAND ON FAITH.

“For everyone who asks receives, 

and the one who searches finds, 

and to the one who knocks, 

the door will be opened. 

What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, 

will give him a snake instead of a fish? 

Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, 

how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” 

Luke 11:10-13

*My friend, Nichole Broome, has an incredible album that will carry you through the darkest times and the most joyous. You can hear New Eyes on iTunes and she has a Pandora station, and the song I referenced is called Cadence's Song.