For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. James 1:3-4
We fail our children when we don't allow them to fail. Yup, you read that right! As a society, it seems that we have come to believe that nobody can be the winner, and nobody the loser. Every kid that played soccer receives a trophy - even if they didn't win the entire season.I ask, why do we do that? What are trying to teach our kids? Yes, they need to know that they can do a great job and we are the ones to affirm that in them, but for each child to be told that they are a "winner" is doing disservice to everyone! Children need to know that in order to succeed they need to put forth the effort as life is NOT easy. Sure we don't want out children to be disappointed, but it's our jobs as parents to comfort them and to encourage our kids to try harder.
When we fail in life (and we will!!) is when we take the time to evaluate just went wrong. Do I not have the skills needed? Did I do my best or did I do just enough? Did I set myself up for failure? Do I have what it takes? Am I putting myself in a position to fail?
Dealing with addictions is really no different. Yup, we failed! And now is the time to figure out what went wrong, accept responsibility, make changes and try again. As adults, we don't have the luxury of having our parents there to help guide us and help with decisions -- but we have sponsors and accountability partners to help us.
So today I don't want to dwell on the failure itself, but on the "what can I do differently?" so I can succeed. I believe failure is a good thing when approached correctly. I'm not saying having an addiction is a healthy habit in life - but rather the method of which you deal with failures is something that will carry you very far in life.
