Vitamin Jared

Last night the unthinkable happened. Jared did not complete his video for the Breakthrough Youth Challenge. This eliminates the possibility of obtaining a life-changing scholarship. College, already an iffy proposition, has become even more difficult to imagine. He applied at one school, where he was denied (too white? Too male? Too academically average?). He abhors the idea of accruing debt. And he has barely scratched the surface on researching other financing or school options.

Still, Jared hasn’t been idle. During the school year, he pursued five educational streams, including courses at two separate colleges. For the last half of the year, he spent most evenings with a whiteboard at our kitchen island, banging out solutions to math problems that looked like novels written with hieroglyphs. As soon as he completed his most difficult class, he moved straight into planning his scholarship video. Too tired to enjoy his own graduation, he fell asleep before the follow-up coverage even aired on TV.

And that’s not all: In the midst of this maelstrom, Jared’s been working to secure a better lifeguard position at the local pool, maintaining a positive and influential attitude at home, and engaging with friend online and in person. He’s attended several dances, taken a few trips to the mountains, and cheerfully engaged with church and family. In short, his busyness hasn’t turned him into a bear.

Despite all these right and good things, a horrible setback still occurred. Jared had the desire to succeed, but he simply couldn’t finish on time. Was it a deficit in preparation? Distraction? Inexperience? Bad luck? Probably a combination of all four. Living in a home with other teenagers, hosting multiple guests in the spring and summer, and being inclined to procrastination probably lent a hand, too.

If only we could have foreseen Jared’s crunch at the end! Perhaps we would have limited our house guests. If only he could have known his microphones would perform poorly, the wrinkles in his green screen ruin his background, his spaceship take extra days to complete.

If only, if only, if only. The wishes that follow these words threaten to chain us to our failures. Although we must embrace grief in order to achieve closure, fixating on the past prevents healing. These things exist behind us now, far outside our control. We must examine our past with acceptance, not anguish, in order to achieve healthy growth.

Replacing “if only” with “what if” moves us toward progress, but only slightly. “What if I had stayed up two hours later? What if I had purchased a better costume?” These questions invite us to fabricate outcomes based on events we can no longer change.

Better still, may we meditate upon the gifts our experience has provided. Because of our failure or disappointment, we now have/know/feel …. what?

Jared has a fantastic astronaut costume and a sweet yellow cape. He knows how to protect a production studio (aka tin-roofed shop) from the sound-destroying influence of heavy rain. He understands the value of margin when building a schedule or plan. He realizes how deeply his family and friends care. Perhaps he’s gained a hint of his next career move, his preferred educational pursuit, his hidden talents or faults.

However, naming the gifts of our failures only activates half their power. Next comes a commitment to action. Will we pick up the pieces of our failed project, tossing them away in disgust? Will we complete it with gritted teeth - or with a good-natured grin? 

Will we speak of our failure? Will we thank those who cared?

Whatever Jared chooses, whatever we choose when we fail, too, let us only sit still for a few moments. Taking great risk implies we are people of action. Though we need not “prove” ourselves with immediate success, we must find an active outlet – even if that outlet is a trip to the woods.

Failure. Success. Both offer gifts that can enrich us. We must do the work to identify these gifts, and we must do the work to respond. But God, ever true to His Word, does the providing. He provides strength for the hard work, strength for the journey, and companionship and insight along the way. He promises to live in us and with us as we walk toward excellence through both failure, success, and the long paths in between.

Congratulations, Jared, for traveling so well. Blessings to you as your journey goes on. You are complete. You are enough. You are loved.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:30-31