failing or flying: back to grace

At the beginning of this year, I committed to growing Selah. I didn’t know how, but I wanted it to be a focus. I decided to start with writing. Just write. Don’t over think it. Instead of scrolling? Just write. It’s good for my heart. It keeps me grounded. Connected. Present. So just write. And I did. Pretty often. I felt more ideas coming, and momentum building. I thought I could do more. Challenge myself with a specific type of post every week. I called it the Friday Five - a collection of five things that brought me joy during the week. From products, to podcasts, mindsetting, mantras, and rhythms, I explored and dug deep and wrote one and sometimes two posts a week. I flew high with the Friday Five for a few good weeks. It was fun and thoughtful. And I was doing it. Sticking with it. Writing. I was so proud.

The first week that I didn’t post a Friday Five, I felt like a total failure. I was so disappointed in myself. It was a such simple goal: write about five things every week. But after a few short weeks, I quit. Failure. It was the thing that slipped as I loaded more and more onto my weekly schedule. Mini Motions, my preschool dance business, kicked off a new season - bringing me pure sweet joy in the form of teaching teeny tiny dancers. Also? A dear friend and I set up a weekly meeting where we talk business, babies, and our hearts - time that lifts me and stirs me up every week. Then I launched a new 30 day Selah group with 8 amazing women diving in deep together - my dream project. And then? Jordan and I dedicated one night a week to discussing a podcast. A mini at home date night every week - committed to growing our relationship in a chaotic time of parenting young children. And as I added more and more, and flew higher and higher with all the good stuff? I let go of the Friday Five. And instead of seeing all the richness I had chosen and created in its place? All I could see was failure. So I had to do a heart check. Am I failing or am I flying?

I came back to my word of the year. The intention I set way back in January. When the year was new. When lives were yet to begin and yet to end. When I had no idea how much this year would shape me. Change my family. The joy I would experience. The grief I would walk through. The vulnerability I would feel. The empowerment I would find. Before it was all revealed? God placed an intention - a prayer on my heart. Grace.

And again today, as I’ve done over and over this year, I choose grace. I choose to see my flight instead of failure. To recognize that I’m choosing what matters most right now. When I look honestly at how I spend my time? I feel content. Satisfied. Grace reminds me that I don’t have to be everything to everyone all the time. That, yes, maybe I can have it all. Do it all. But not all at the same time. Not all right now. So instead of burnout, I can choose. And right now? I’m choosing what gives me life. I’m choosing fellowship and a passion project. I’m choosing to use my gifts to support my family and to meet a need in my community. I’m dating my husband and snuggling my babies. And the blog? The Friday Five? Well, it’s just not what I’m choosing right now. And that is ok. I am not failing. I am flying.

​I use grace to extinguish the lie that I failed when I stopped posting a weekly Friday Five. Maybe that sounds ridiculous. How could something so small play so greatly on my sense of success and self worth? Who even noticed I quit? It doesn’t even matter. But it does. I have done it a million times before. Set expectations for myself that are invisible and inconsequential to the world but that prove I’m failing when I don’t see them through. The invisible measuring stick. I want to cook dinner four nights a week. Read to my kids for 30 minutes twice a day. I want to drink a green smoothie every day. Get up early. Keep a plant alive. Grow my business. Workout more. Drink more water. Read a fiction book. Go on more dates. Clean my house more. There are so many things. And I don’t measure up to the invisible bar I set impossibly high.

But grace? Grace happens when I put away the measuring stick and just ask, “Am I living the way I choose to live? Am I spending my time the way I choose to spend it?” Because here’s the thing. I simply cannot do it all. Neither can you. But I can choose. And you can choose. I can make the hard choices about what is the most important to me right now. In this season. And I can choose grace for the things I just can’t do. I can let go. And be confident that I chose well.

Now, did I quit the Friday Five to binge on Netflix or scroll Instagram? No. I quit it to spend quality time with my people, to create a curriculum for a new program, to run a business I love. I had to choose. And I had to let go of what I didn’t choose. Does that mean those things are not important? The Friday Five. The fiction book. The green smoothie every single day. No. They are just not as important to me right now. One day, there will be a time for those things. But this season has a different focus.

And if I did quit it to binge on Netflix and scroll Instagram? I would need grace, not judgment. And a heart check. Why do I self sabotage? Why am I not following through on what matters to me? What really does matter to me? Why am I so afraid to be better? To be more? How can I show up better for myself? I’ve been there. I’ve been glued to my phone, missed moments, given up goals for no good reason. Failing. Failure happens. But grace lets me try again. And again. And again.

So? Are you there now? Quitting yourself again? Failing? Start with grace. Maybe quitting is your most comfortable pattern, but it does not define you. You own your own time. You own your own dreams. You choose what matters. And when you own your own happiness? You really can move beyond your patterns. God made you to use your gifts for His glory and to love the life He breathed into you, even when it’s hard. Even when you have to push beyond old patterns and dispel the lies about yourself. You can fly. Even if you’ve failed a thousand times before. You can fly this time.

We are not promised easy. But we are promised grace. Grace says that I am not enough, but I am worthy anyway. Grace says that I can fail over and over and over, and still try again. That I am not defined by my past. That my future is hopeful. Grace says that I don’t have to be everything to everyone all the time. That I get to leave what doesn’t matter behind and live a life I love. That I don’t have to do it all. That I can choose what to do well.

Are you tired? Exhausted? Feeling inadequate? I’m reaching out to you with grace. You can stop. Rest. Heart check. Breathe in the grace. And you can move forward without burden or shame, but with hope and energy and confidence.

You can fly. And, sister, maybe you already are.