As Christians, There Is No Such Thing As Failure!

Weakness. Shortcomings.

Disability.

For most of my life, I’ve considered myself as inferior to other “normal” people. And because of this, I felt I was a failure.

Especially when I never attained my dreams.

As a girl with hearing impairment and some speech deficit due to the disability, I never really let my disability bother me.

I was fine with who I was. I still had friends and was an active kid who enjoyed playing in the outdoors and any sport they allowed me to play. 😉

When I entered college, I had high hopes and plans.

This all changed when I received the diagnosis that I had a progressive eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa.

Hearing loss I could deal with.

But to add a disease where I was slowly losing my sight?

It was a bridge too far for me.

I just simply gave up.

For years afterward, I floundered aimlessly.

I was angry and bitter.  I didn’t want anything to do with God for a long, long time.

I was a failure because He failed me.

Because of my anger, I developed the worse kind of blindness – one of a hardened heart.

Ephesians 4:18 –

“Being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.”

I held on to this anger and pain – refusing to relent; not just because of my resentment against Him, but I felt deserving of them.

My disabilities and not attaining my dreams – I viewed as punishments for being imperfect.

I was inferior therefore I didn’t deserve anything good.

I’d believed that God had no use for someone like me.

Wrong.

I kept hearing His soft voice in my mind – inviting me to return to Him and He would lift this burden I’ve needlessly placed on myself.

All I needed to do was to let go and let Him take it all.

Isaiah 42:16 –

“I will lead the blind by a way they do not know,

In paths they do not know I will guide them.

I will make darkness into light before them

And rugged places into plains.

These are the things I will do,

And I will not leave them undone.”

I was placed in this world for a purpose – His purpose.

He has a plan for me – which included my disabilities and pain and loss.

All I needed to do was to let go – and let Him.

The Book of John has a passage which finally broke through my hardened heart:

John 9: 2, 3 –

And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

And then these passages gave me the reasons for my so-called shortcomings and pain:

Romans 5:3-5 –

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

2 Corinthians 12: 9,10 –

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

These words penetrated my hardened heart with His wonderful promises of hope and comfort.

I am still very much a work in progress who still battles with fears and lack of confidence in myself, and I still fail from time to time because of my shortcomings as a human being – but, I have the reassurance knowing that He will use them all to complete the work He began in me all those years ago.