Failure

January 25

I am thankful for failures because they are a low point from which you can climb up again. When we make mistakes, fail, or do not live up to expectations of how we should live, it makes us want to improve, get better, and to succeed in life. I have failed more times than I like to admit. I have failed many times to live the life that God requires of me. I am grateful that failure allows us to self examine and improve.

Pictured above is a cherry chocolate cheesecake that I recently made. As soon as I took the side of the springform pan off, it flopped and fell into this ugly state. It turns out I made the mistake of not letting it cool down after taking it out of the oven before I removed the sides. Although it looks like a failure and is difficult to cut into manageable pieces, the cheesecake tasted wonderfull I suppose you would classify this as a partical failure (even though it looks abysmal!) - one that I learned from but one that didn't have any long term implications.

I recall a similar instance when my daughter, Beth, made a birthday cake for a friend and it fell to pieces. I encouraged Beth to make the best of the situation. We iced it with boldly colored icing-purple, blue, pink, and yellow. It was so vividly colored and decorated that it hid the fact that the layers were lopsided and and falling all over the place. It turned out to be quite a memorable cake. It was so ugly it was outstanding! So sometimes, failures can be salvaged and made even greater than we can imagine. All it takes is ingenuity, creativity, and persistence. And no crying or feeling sorry for yourself!

January 25b

failure

i failed

i cried

i didn’t do

what I wanted to do

to come out on top

to succeed

to fill a need

within

i told myself that to fail

does not make you a failure be

to fail is but a step

along the road of

in the pursuit of me

so i picked myself up

and looked the next task in the eye

failure, thank you for helping

but I’ll have to bid you goodbye.

© rt tulley