What To Do When You’re a Failure

Today was one of those days.

Nothing terrible happened. Nothing even out of the ordinary happened. Today was just typical.

Sometimes it’s the mundane, every day messes that can really get me down the most.

I put on a clean shirt, only to have Rhett vomit all over it. No big deal. I put on another one. Same thing.

I have to clear a spot on the rug for him to play on, and he happily plays with his noisy, musical toy, laughing at the different sounds.

But I am not laughing.

Instead I find myself looking around the room. Cups clutter the end table. Shoes are scattered on the floor. The sink is overflowing with dishes from yesterday. I peer down the stairs and see laundry spilling into the hallway from the laundry room.

I slip away for a bathroom break and look at myself in the mirror. Disheveled doesn’t even begin to cover it. My hair, just now growing back from losing it after having Rhett, sticks up like an ugly halo around my face, which seems to be growing rounder and rounder by the day. My clothes fit tighter these days from my expanding baby belly. I look away as quickly as possible.

I try to fold clothes and soothe Rhett as he has a meltdown. I can’t help but feel like a complete and utter failure.

“You can’t even keep up with the bare minimum of life.” I think to myself. I stink at being a homemaker. I stink at being a mom. And heaven knows I stink at being a wife.

I struggle to hold back the tears.

I try and reach out to a few friends. Mainly complaining of being tired and overwhelmed, but I try to spare them the details. But they are in totally different places in life. I feel alone in this pit of despair that I have seemingly created for myself.

I wonder if I will always feel like this? Will I ever have the energy to decorate and paint my new house? Or maybe even try something new like quilting or gardening? Will I ever feel beautiful again…or even just slightly put together? Will I always feel so tired?

I sit down at the kitchen table, open up my bible and begin reading, earnestly searching for something solid for my weary soul to cling to.

I turn Shane and Shane on Spotify and take a deep breath.

“Lord, please just meet me here tonight. I need something and I need it bad.” my soul cries as I read.

I read in Genesis 15 how Abram believed God, and He counted it to him as righteousness. He took God at His word.

I work through my memory verses and come across these two gems:

“Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.”
Psalm 42:5

“This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me.” Psalm 119:50

I didn’t feel a huge weight lifted. Heaven didn’t open up and relieve me of my anxiety. But I chose to be like Abram and believe that what those verses told me would be true. He would revive me through His word, and I would again praise Him for the help of His presence. I chose to hope in God.

I couldn’t help but tear up as I heard these words playing in the background:

“All of my life, in every season, You are still God. I have a reason to sing. I have a reason to worship.”

Yes. So sing and worship I did.

Why do I share all of this with you? To make you feel sorry for me that I had such a miserable day? No. That is the last thing I want.

But I wanted to encourage you, just like the Lord encouraged me tonight, that when you feel completely overwhelmed with life, or even your own failures, seek comfort in the only One who can truly comfort you.

And keep seeking even if you don’t feel a huge change right away. Sometimes it’s a sudden and immediate relief, like sweet rain washing over you. And other times it’s a battle. You have to seek and seek some more. And in the end you may just have to take truth and hold on to it with all you have until your soul believes it.

That’s what I had to do tonight. And I can honestly say, it has never failed me. Because HE never fails me.

So if you’re in that pit of discouragement, fight. Don’t give up!

“The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23