Let me start off by saying, “Divorce does not make you a failure.” Just because your marriage may have failed, you are not a failure! Zig Ziglar says,”Failure is one of life’s greatest teachers as long as we are not crushed by it – as long as we learn from it.”
Too often people that get divorced allow themselves to get crushed by it, rather than learning from it. The people who get crushed by it remain stuck and hopeless. The people who learn from it, will accept responsibility for their part in the marriage failure, discover how to make changes and better choices in the future, and move forward with their life. People who move forward understand that their past does not define their future.
Zig Ziglar in his book “Better Than Good, Creating a Life You Can’t Wait to Live” lists the following as some of the best lessons to learn from failure:
Failure teaches us to depend on God.
Failure teaches us humility.
Failure teaches us that we can’t always get what we want.
Failure teaches us to make a correction in our course of action.
Failure teaches us character.
Failure teaches us perseverance.
Failure teaches us that we can survive.
If you are like most people you fear failure. Yet, there is so much to learn from failure. You may be saying to yourself it is one thing to fail a test, or to fail at trying to lose weight, but to fail in your marriage, that is huge.
It is true, some failures are more significant than others. Some failures are easier to admit than others. I believe we often struggle more with the failure of our marriage because we feel we have not only failed ourselves, but our spouse, our family and God.
Years ago David Brinkley interviewed Ann Landers, the advice columnist. He asked her what was the question she received most often? Her answer: “What is wrong with me?” It was apparent to her that people struggle with feelings of failure, negative thoughts or beliefs about themselves.
To overcome adversity and failure it comes down to your perspective and how you choose to respond. How do you perceive your divorce and how will you choose to respond? Divorce is devastating, there is no doubt about it. Will you allow it to crush you or will you learn from it? How many of the lessons mentioned above have you learned?
Blessings to you as you ponder the lessons to be learned and the value you can take from your failed marriage.
Copyright 2009 Shelley Grieser All Rights Reserved.
As John Maxwell has written, Fail Forward! We live in a culture that has told us that failure is bad. A child learning to walk fails hundreds of times, yet they don’t give up. When we become “culturized” (aka adults) we fail once and it destroys our self esteem. We need to convince ourselves that failure is on the road to success. Another great post, Shelley!