Losing the battle to win the war

I'm a nerd, I'll admit it. I like history and yesterday I discovered a PBS show about Indiana in the Civil War. On one part of the show they talked about a general from Indiana who played a key role in the Civil War. The Northern troops were spread out and Washington DC was left lightly guarded. A confederate force started moving towards Washington DC and the only force available was this Hoosier general and his poorly trained troops. This general took his troops and got in the way of the confederates and took a stand. They were beaten, but they bought enough time for other troops to reinforce Washington DC. It was said that this general and his men accomplished more in their defeat than most did in victory.

So a couple of weeks ago I went kayaking. I'll admit, I had some pride issues. I was convinced that I was going to be the first HCC member to never swim. I was scared when I put on the water, but I think many times that my fear isn't so much about death or getting hurt as it is about failing. I really didn't want to blow it and I was afraid that I would. It took me all of 15 minutes on the river, directly across from the put in, to swim. My worst fear came true. As I saw on the bank of the river catching my breath, I struggled with myself. I was trying to figure out if I had the courage to ferry across the river back to my car to drive home. Somewhere I found the courage to get back in my boat. Then, somewhere I found the courage to roll my kayak twice, just to remind myself that I can do it. I didn't realize it until later, but I think I accomplished more there than if I had never swam. My fears came true and I kept going.

I think many times in my life I've never tried because I was afraid I would fail. That can be true in many parts of our life, whether it's with relationships with the opposite sex, jobs, adventures, and even our relationship with God. We don't try to push the limits because we're afraid that we'll get hurt or it won't work out. So we sit still and just try not to rock the boat. But when we do that, we fail to live and to experience all that could be. One of God's greater Graces to us is not just that He forgives us if we fail, He gives us permission to fail. No, God doesn't want us to fail. But He understands that if we don't fall down then we never learn to walk. It's simply part of the process and if we don't engage in that process, we'll never mature.

It's ok to struggle, struggling is good. Struggling means that we're meeting resistance, things are getting hard, but we're still going. We fall down and get back up. We end up swimming, but we get back in the boat. We get our pride handed to us shattered in a million little pieces, but we refuse to just sit there with the broken pieces of our heart. We persevere because we refuse to settle for mediocrity, we want to experience the fullness of what God offers us.

I struggle and many times I fall. There's been many battles that I've walked away from without trying to fight back. But there are also battles that I continue to fight. It's hard and it's scary, but I'm struggling.

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt