I hope you fail (best words: part one)

My hands ache as I focus on the chords. Some come smoothly, others fumble forward.

It's my final day, my final grade. This one jazz standard.

It's me, this old guitar, and the professor, with the door open, the breeze flowing through. I take a breath and start again. At the beginning.

photo cred: Daemon, via Wikimedia Commons

I close my eyes and just play, and all of a sudden, I'm done. He nods. I can't tell whether I did well or not. I replay the notes in my head but they all blend together. And he nods again.

The whole semester of lessons had felt like I was failing. Not in that nice, everyone-gets-a-ribbon sort of way, but failing, making mistakes rapidly without even realizing it. Blending chords that don't mix. Strumming at the wrong time. Making my own rhythm and then relearning it again.

He starts to talk, and I feel like I know what's coming. That I'm just not one of those people who have rhythm, or are talented, or I need to practice more.

"You worked really hard," he takes a sip of his coffee and stands up straighter. "Elizabeth, I hope you fail." I freeze. He talks with his hands, tracing a concept in the air.

"You're going to graduate and get a job and make a life for yourself. And maybe you'll play guitar, and maybe you won't. But don't be paralyzed by perfection. You're going to fail at a lot of things-- it's called learning. And I hope you fail. I hope you play jazz songs your own way, and make paths where there are none, and take jobs and quit them.

You have this fear of failing, and it will paralyze you if you let it. The moment you really fail is when you stop trying. Don't ever stop trying."

--

I wrote those words down, and I found them today. I found them like a favorite song, like a letter from an old friend. They proved to be some of the best words anyone ever gave me. You see,

I don't play the guitar anymore.

I remember my favorite chords; I can pick some melodies. I have chosen jobs and moved my possessions, started hobbies and abandoned them. I am trying, moving forward, full force, with every melody I've got.

He was right: learning sometimes feels a lot like failing. But it's in that learning you find something out about yourself, something truer than safety:

You are incredibly resilient. You will try things and change them. You will risk and learn about yourself. You, you are your own person, with your own music. You are not alone. You are an always-changing, always-valuable story. And we,

we are waiting with sweet anticipation to see what good things happen next.
--

What are the best words someone has given you? Advice? Encouragement?

on my way: nicaragua.

Dear friends,

I have some really cool news, but it requires starting at the beginning.  This post is a little long, but I promise I'm going somewhere.  The last six years of my life have been an amazing journey, and I would love to have you in on it.  Walk with me?

6/26/06- On my way to Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.  I am 16.  Our group from church will help repair a barn, shingle a roof, and frame a new house.  In red dirt, empty lots, and twisted, mangled tree roots, we find some sort of crazy hope.  There can be rebuilding after disaster.

7/6/06- The woman we helped cries as we pull out of her driveway.  You don't know what you've done for us, she says.  I want to tell her it's the other way around.  I want to tell her she blessed me more than she'll ever know.  I came to fix a barn and left, startled by the love I felt for another human being in the course of one week.  I left broken and whole and challenged. 

6/26/07- On my way to Mississippi again.  Except I decide not to go.  What changed?  I have no idea.

6/26/08- I graduate from high school.  I get lost in things that seem important.  I find my worth in studying, working hard, pleasing people.

6/26/09- I am exhausted. I pray that God would interrupt me from myself.  And He does.

12/26/09- On my way to Indianapolis.  Instead of graduating a year early, I decide to go on a missions trip to Virginia.  What changed?  Everything.  God changed everything.

6/1/10- On my way to Virginia.  It is hot.  I have no idea what I'm getting myself into, in the best way possible.  I'm immersed in a community of Christian college students that loves me exactly as I am; this view of grace will change my life.  We walk along the beach, we sing too loudly, we talk with people about what they believe.  For the first time, I feel known and alive.

7/15/10-  Walking home from church the night before my birthday, friends and I run into a man on the boardwalk who we talk with about God.  He says he's too far gone for forgiveness.  We talk with him until it's dark out, until it's midnight.  Until it's my birthday, and I have given this stranger the most valuable thing that I know how to give.  We are all talking and crying and praying, and I realize that this is what I want my life to look like.  I want it to look like love.

8/12/10- On my way home.  I struggled with readjusting.  I don't know what to do.

1/1/11- I get a little lost again.  I am on my way to graduating.  People swarm in with opinions.  I should try this.  I should have studied something else.  I'm going to be unemployed.  Being a writer is ridiculous.  Just do something normal, for once.

6/1/11- I take on more responsibilities.  I take more classes.  I have two jobs.  I apply for internships.  I try to balance obligations and the idea that people are important.  My priorities wrestle.  People get the short end of the stick.

1/20/12- I apply for a dream internship.  I realize that my church is going to Nicaragua to help people in poverty.  I want to do both.  I consider withdrawing my internship application.  I submit it anyway.

2/28/12- Rejected from internship. I am disappointed and yet...relieved.  Do I cry or laugh?  These plans are bigger than me.



3/24/12- Today.

Today finds me spending two weeks of this summer in Leon, Nicaragua.  I am thrilled, amazed, and ready.  It feels like I've been waiting years for this trip.  Years to rediscover what I once knew in my bones was important.

 
People are important.

People are more important than seeming important.

And love.

Love is the most important.


I praise God that He knows what we need.  And I think He knew I needed this trip.  That I couldn't get lost for awhile.  That I needed to be found.  Found in the power of the gospel, in the richness of community, in the awe that comes from His love.

If you feel lost or stuck or on your way to something you're unsure of: I know how that feels. It feels weird to have big questions, or too-big dreams, or a passion for something that doesn't quite fit into how your life looks right now.

The best thing someone ever told me was this: keep trusting God.  Dreams will come and go, but He stays the same.  And if you're supposed to be somewhere, you'll get there, somehow.  Even if it takes time.  It has taken me a lot of time, but I'm on my way.

I used to think I was on my way to being a writer and sometimes went on missions trips.  I wonder, now, if it isn't the other way around.  If I have always, deep down, been on my way to wherever God is taking me, and sometimes I get to write about it.

Who knows what the future holds?  I don't.  And it feels really good.  It feels like surrender, after all these years.

With all hope,
-e