Question (from Facebook community): “Does the feeling of being a failure ever go away?”
I sat in church this weekend and felt my now-normal uncomfortability. Being a single woman, after an adulthood of being a married woman, in a church especially is awkward and painful. The reminders of my status are innumerable each Sunday morning. The middle-aged unmarried couple two rows ahead of me all giggly and affectionate. The promo for the interview during next week’s service of the couple who inspired The Vow. The upcoming five-week series on marriage. (Can’t wait…talk about a slow, painful death.) Just the fact that I’m sitting between my two children when almost every other grown woman in that room sits next to her husband.
But what pricked me the most was the mention from the teaching pastor during his message on prayer that “it’s always too soon to quit”. It’s always too soon to quit, he repeated. He was referring to being perseverant in prayer but he was also talking about that if you want the kind of character of someone who isn’t a quitter, the way you do that is to not quit things. To see things through to the end. No matter what.
I did not do that. I made a commitment to God, to another human being, and in front of my friends and family to not quit, to stay no matter what. And I did not keep that commitment. I failed to stay married.
We can rationalize this till we’re blue in the face. Vows were broken. I was released to separate. I wasn’t the divorce-initiator. All true. But I didn’t stay no matter what. I still, technically, had the choice to just plain stay in an abusive, painful situation, to not be a quitter. But I didn’t. I failed.
I’m failing on another front as well. There are people out there who don’t like me, who don’t approve of me, whom I cannot look in the eye and have a conversation with. Someone just asked me how communication is going with a certain person in my life and I am embarrassed to say this, but as a 42-year-old woman I had to honestly admit that it is going horribly. That I don’t have the restraint to talk on the phone with this person without losing it, so I have chosen to only communicate via texts and emails in an effort to hold myself back. That is a failure on my part, that there is even one person on this planet that I don’t have the emotional maturity to speak to with respect and kindness.
So, to answer the question, yes and no. I think in some respects, yes, I will always feel I fell short. That there was more I could’ve done, that there is more I could be doing. I will always look around my church sanctuary and feel ever-so-slightly less thanbecause I wasn’t able to hold a marriage together like almost everyone else in that room. And I will always feel a little bit nauseous that there are people I can’t connect with no matter what I try.
And yet…I must choose to believe some things.
I must choose to believe that I did the best that I could and I’m doing the best that I can.
I must choose to believe that when God looks at my heart, he sees what Christ did for me and that somehow covers over it all.
I must choose to believe that God’s will prevails, that he is so sovereign that somehow I cannot tank his plans for me.
I must choose to believe that I am forgiven, that his word is true.
I must choose to believe that though I am frail, he moves in me the deepest in those moments.
I must choose to believe that good comes out of every failure, that redemption is occurring in the slivers when I feel least worthy.
I must believe that I am being healed, that the closer I walk with Jesus and let him put me back together, the fewer failings I will make along the way.
And I must – absolutely must – choose to believe that no matter what I’ve done or not done, I am loved. That I have been loved every moment of my life, in every mistake and failure and sin, and that I will be loved until the end of time, no matter what else I may do that’s off course. And when I truly believe these things – that God is supreme above my failures and loves me nonetheless – then I will be able to walk with my head a little bit higher, trusting that the One who created me knew all along what I would get myself into, and has walked beside me the entire time.
I must choose to believe that when God looks at my heart, he sees what Christ did for me and that somehow covers over it all.
I must choose to believe that God’s will prevails, that he is so sovereign that somehow I cannot tank his plans for me.
I must choose to believe that I am forgiven, that his word is true.
I must choose to believe that though I am frail, he moves in me the deepest in those moments.
I must choose to believe that good comes out of every failure, that redemption is occurring in the slivers when I feel least worthy.
I must believe that I am being healed, that the closer I walk with Jesus and let him put me back together, the fewer failings I will make along the way.
And I must – absolutely must – choose to believe that no matter what I’ve done or not done, I am loved. That I have been loved every moment of my life, in every mistake and failure and sin, and that I will be loved until the end of time, no matter what else I may do that’s off course. And when I truly believe these things – that God is supreme above my failures and loves me nonetheless – then I will be able to walk with my head a little bit higher, trusting that the One who created me knew all along what I would get myself into, and has walked beside me the entire time.
In abuse there is a too late. When someone is dead, when the kids are lost because of the abuse, etc.
I have sat in church alone for years and I am still married to a professing Christian. I don’t even get to sit in church with my children anymore because they don’t go either. Why should they, they say, dad doesn’t have to go.
Yes lots of failure in my life but…
I guess I failed too… I tried my best to remain, he chose to leave and separate and said no counselling… something which I’d been asking for years for us to do… but he saw all the fault laying at my feet which was untrue as I did not have an abusive personality and never so much as raised my voice at him, even in the midst of an outburst… I was too scared.
so he left, lived like a single person and literally told me that ‘he left so it would shock me so I would change’… again all the blame at my feet, zero introspection on his part for his failure and the fact that a loving relationship cannot exist or be cultivated in an environment of mistrust, abuse, control…
that is when I told him… I am divorcing you… and I had done years worth of soul searching and research as to what was right in Gods eyes… I think without pride that God said to me on the 9th of Jan this year, as we flew home from Johannesburg to London… its okay… let it go, this is going to be a tough year, but you have done all you can do… the peace I felt deep within was amazing… and as I struggle now on a day to day basis with the battle… I have a core of peace deep inside that I know that I am not a failure.. and in my limited knowledge of what you have said you have been through Beth, you are not a failure…
Thank you both for your comments and for yours as well Beth. I too feel this way. I am now a single father. As i write this, tears come to my eyes and i feel shameful because i am at work. I am trying so hard to move through this storm and be the man and father that God expects me to be. I am told that when these feelings come about to think about happy things. I have so many pictures of fun memories with my son all around my desk.
Lately, it seems when i look at them the tears start to come. I dont know why.
I was not the initiator as well. I fought and fought and i believe i am still fighting.
I dont want to feel this way. I want to choose all the things Beth lists, unfortunately right now the pain is so overwhelming. I feel the same in church as well.
Karen, my heart goes out to you as i can relate, my mother had to deal with the same thing and i had to grow up watching it.
My father still doesnt hold himself accountable for it which makes me sad.
I dont know what to do. I cry alot when im with my son, he is only 3. Even when he senses my sadness, he puts his hand on me and says”it will be ok daddy, be happy” I so want to for him, to be strong. I dont know if this is healthy for him or not.
I cant walk away, he needs a father, he needs me now. But i feel so much failure that i feel i am doing more damage than good.
If we have done our best with what we knew and the other spouse closes the door for reconciliation then I do not think we need to live with feelings of failure (not saying that we won’t feel that way but that they are not based in reality). Satan is the accuser and “There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Even if we have failed or messed up – there is grace and forgiveness at the foot of the cross and we do not have to carry the weight of that forward. Other people can think what they want but we need to be more concerned about what HE thinks than about the opinion of others. Walk in grace dear sister!
I also resonate with this as another single father. I chose to file after years of working on trying to recover with a repeatedly unfaithful spouse…who still maintains she is willing to work on it, but there is no heart change. And so, when all you hear are the “success” stories, the failure implication is made clear.
Perhaps the biggest challenge is the “infamous” I Cor. 13 and love never fails. Though I believe it is a picture of God’s perfect love, it’s still widely used as an expectation, one that I have failed to meet.
I am an epic failure at 42, too. Raised in a family full of pastors and as a daughter of a pastor, it took me years and years to finally ask my abusive husband to move out. Now, because I did that, all the blame is on me. I feel like a failure and find myself so uncomfortable in church which just breaks my heart. I’m homesick for that feeling of being fully accepted, understood, and loved by my Church family. I can also relate to being unable to be in that person’s presence without feeling like flipping out… I realized yesterday that I simply cannot be around that person right now because apparently I’m not mature enough to not feel like committing a felony. Darn. I hate that about me!