Yesterday at MOPS, I did devotions on “feeling like a failure”. Our theme for the day was “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall” focusing on self-esteem. If ever there has been a time in my life, when I totally felt unqualified to speak about self-esteem - it is now. So I truly struggled with what I should say or even if I should change the topic.
With the decision that my partner and I have made to close Reminders of Faith, I have experienced intense feelings of failure and self doubt. I have pondered over and over again if I really heard God’s calling to start Reminders of Faith or did I vary from the direction that God had called. Satan’s lies to me are that I am a failure and that God has not deemed the work I did valuable enough to provide. I know that God has called me to encourage others to remember His faithfulness and Reminders of Faith was a vehicle to do. And I know that God did bless Reminders of Faith in amazing ways - but now He is closing the door even though we have product and debt that need to be met. My heart reminds me of Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego when they were about to be thrown into the fiery furance and they said that our God can save us, but no matter if He does or not, we will still serve HIM (Daniel 3). That is what I want to say and believe - that no matter what - I will still serve my God. But it is hard, very very hard to watch something that you have worked so hard on and that you know God called you to do - to watch it end.
So, yesterday in MOPS I shared all that I have been going through this fall with the MOPS Mom. I told them of the lies that Satan keep repeating to me and how often I have listened. I told them how discouraged and down I have been. I also told them how I had built my self esteem on being a speaker, writer and owner of a Christian business and how as that has been taken away from me - I have had to remember where my self esteem does come from.
On my birthday this year, I woke up early and felt God call me to write down truths from His word that I know are true no matter what. Since that time, I have used this writing for myself and for others. It has been helpful to me to print this out and focus on one or two of these truths, especially when the lies come into my head. As I told the Moms, when the lies (such as I am a failure, or things will never change) start to come into my mind – I try to focus on God’s truths that I wrote. After I spoke, I had so many Moms who wanted to talk to me (and since then I have received so many emails from them). So many of them have felt like a failure as a Mother, a wife, in their finances or even in their belief in God — I am amazed at what my vulerablity brought out in them. It is so freeing to not have to be perfect to be a mentor, but to actually be able to share that even when I am broken - God is still faithful.
My middle daughter recently wrote me this in an email … “One thing I do think is that God is giving you the chance to truly live out your message right now. You have always said that we recognize and remember those moments so that when the hard times come, we can remember that God is faithful. Maybe it is time for you to put up some reminders of how God has been faithful to you.” One of the Moms wrote me , “Maybe God has placed these failure feelings within you because that is truly what moms feel like at MOPS, and this allows you in turn to relate so well. Maybe walking in these footsteps is what God needs from you to endure to be the great mentor you are. You are always asking the Lord to help through your troubles, I believe He is carrying you right now. You taught me the Lord knows what He is doing…..You taught me the difficulty and importance of grace, you taught me how to overcome feeling like a failure as a wife to my husband, of not being good enough…..You make me feel at home.”
Wow, these are words that speak encouragement to me if I allow them. My daughters reminded me over Thanksgiving that I have many good things in my life – a wonderful husband of 26 years, daughters who love the Lord and are pursuing His calling in their life, great friends and a wonderful group of MOPS Moms to hang out with. Yes, I am disappointed with the business issues, but I still trust God to do the impossible there. And even if God chooses not to do the impossible (in other words sell Reminders of Faith’s inventory) – I still choose to serve and follow Him.
So am I a big failure - probably if you are viewing my business in light of the world. If I am viewing myself in the light of God’s word, then I am loved, redeem, forgiven and have a purpose even when I am not paid (oh, if only I would believe God’s truth every moment of every day).
In one of my next entries I am going to share what I wrote about God’s truths. I encourage you to do either write your own or use this one to focus on the truth instead of the lies of the enemy
[...] causes, symptoms and treatments. And I followed up with a talk focused on our bathrooms and how what we see in the mirror is not the same as what our loving Lord sees. He loves how He created us and how He gifted us no [...]