I Don't Like Failure

A little over a year ago, I was diagnosed with Heart Failure.  The official term is Idiopathic Cardiomyopathy which really sounds better to me,  more technical and medical than dealing with any part of me that is a "failure".  It means Heart Failure of an unknown cause. 

You see, I have a problem with failure.  It is not an option for me.  I just really have a hard time accepting failure.  Maybe it's because I am a teacher and the daughter of a teacher and a father who also had high expectations.  I always strove for good grades in school and always did well. It did produce some anxiety for me from time to time, but I always managed to be successful in school.  Now I am a teacher, and when I am dealing with a student who is not doing well, it becomes my mission to help them to do better, to find success somehow.  Failure is not an option.

When I heard that I had Heart Failure, I was truly taken by surprise.  I have taken care of myself most of the time during my life.  I don't smoke, drink excessively, do drugs etc.   I have exercised regularly, watched my weight, seen the doctor regularly.....and my heart is still "failing"!

Throughout the last year I have had two procedures to place a pacemaker and resynchronization device into my heart to help delay the progression of the Heart Failure.  I'm sure I am no different than any other person who has been diagnosed with a life threatening disease.  There needs to be a time of acceptance and dealing with the immediate medical procedures to help me....but failure, that is not something easy for me to take.

Having my body fail me has brought up other thoughts about failure that have weighed heavy on my heart. (literally!)

I have been thinking about parenting children.  I wanted to be a good mom!  I tried everything that I could do to ensure that my children would not fail.  I sent my sister an email one time that had the words "Failure Notice" in the subject title. She responded that she was freaked out thinking the email was coming from one of her boys' schools!  I think we are a lot alike, my sister and I! We both take our children's successes and failures so much to heart.

I remember driving in the car one day, so down because my son had failed almost every class he had taken at college one semester.  I was so down about it....feeling like I myself, had failed. God clearly spoke to me in the silence of the car that day and said to me, "Gail, you did not fail!"  This was not my failure. Somehow I felt like a failure anyway.  That fear of failure or the failure of someone near and dear to me...that it is somehow a reflection on me.  I have such deep seated fears of failure...maybe I have been such a people pleaser that I attempted to control my situations by excelling academically.  That was my way of being "good".

"There are no failures only outcomes". (A quote from a Facebook application) 

When I heard that small voice telling me to "Take care of your family."  I immediately began to look at  all of those painful memories...the areas of my life when I felt like I had failed. Maybe I didn't take care well enough in some situations.  Maybe I have been a failure as a mom.

If you are a good parent, your child ought to turn out "right", right?  When I look at my children's lives, I wonder and I judge, I actually judge them and myself on standards that are not mine to set.  I feel the guilt, what did I do?  Where did I go wrong?

I battle these feelings of failure each and everyday....that some defect in me has been the cause of my perceptions of failure. I don't get it. I don't understand.  But I do know that I am who I am and the story is not over yet for me or for my children.

I know that I have cared for my family and will continue to show them love and respect.  We have had some wonderful family moments and actually only God knows the "rest of the story"! God must have a purpose for my failures.  I believe that He does.  I may not always see what that purpose is, but it is something.  

God's Creatures Never Fail

Today I will accept my Heart Failure as simply a health problem that I am dealing with.  My Heart Failure is not a failure to love or care for the people in my life.  My Heart  Failure is not a lacking of my heart to feel, love and give the best I have to offer. This broken heart of mine can continue to pray for and lift up all of the people I love.  I can intercede for them today by giving them all up to the One who love us all.