redefining failure

Lately, I have been struggling a lot with inadequacy, especially in the area of being a wife. It seems that when I look around at other Christian wives I see women who stay at home, cook dinner every night, plan meals for the week or month, budget, stay on top of cleaning, have babies and raise them. All of that stuff is amazing (if you are one of these wives you rock my life), but it simply isn't my life right now. I am the wife whose house may look like a tornado hit it, especially on test week. I am the wife who is more likely to pick up dinner somewhere while running between school, meetings, etc than to cook a big meal. I am the wife who will probably eat cereal for dinner if her husband's at work. I am the wife whose husband is more likely to do laundry than I am. The longest my planning of meals usually goes is this: what are we eating for the next one? I am the wife who doesn't know when she'll have kids and questions if she'll ever be ready since sometimes she can't handle taking care of a puppy.

Believe me, I know that I'm not supposed to be comparing myself to other people (easier said than done for me!) but as I look around at other Christians it is difficult to find wives in a similar situation as mine, or at least those women are not the ones in my life or my community. All this to say that lately I have been calling into question what my life is supposed to look like in light of my role and responsibility as a Christian wife and the call that I feel that God has for me and feeling like a failure on most counts.

Fortunately, yesterday I was able to attend a lunch seminar with Charles Lee, who is a pastor and co-founder of an organization called Just One. His talk was about creativity, but as a part of it he also addressed redefining failure using this video as illustration:




He made the point that outcomes are God's business and that our part of the equation is simply faithfulness. His spin on failure was this: "If you stay faithful to the passions God has formed in you, you cannot fail."

Does this mean I don't want to be better at domestic things and taking care of my home? No, but it does mean that I am free to leave the results up to God while I worry about staying faithful to His calling.