Failure.

Have you ever felt like a failure?

That was supposed to be a world cake. What? You can’t see it?

What happens when you feel like your life is categorized by the little or big things in life and determine your value?

Do you listen to the voices that tell you that you are a failure?

Recently one of my children had a decision they had to make. I knew I needed to be there on the journey and support their decision, even if I felt it was not the right one. But I couldn’t stop hearing the nagging voice that told me that if they made the decision that I felt was wrong, I had failed.

Had I?

Was I a failure because someone chose to walk a different pathway than I would choose?

No. I wasn’t.

Did I fail at making a tasty cake and decorating it in the photo above? Yes. I did. Did that define me as a person? Determine my value?

No.

Many times other people in our lives will make decisions that impact us. They may circle around and make us look like we failed.

A spouse abandons their family. Someone refuses to get a job. A meal gets ruined because of a mistake. The list could go on and on.

Do those define us as failures?

Those do not define us as failures anymore than something going right determines we are a success. We may have had a failure in our life. Something may not have gone right, but we are not what we do.

Stop, look around at the people instead. Do horrible things happen?

Yes. But they do not define us. Make wise choices in the chaos. Make healthy choices in the places you can in your life. But don’t allow others choices to dictate your success or failure.