As a kid, I used to hate losing. If we’re being honest, I still don’t like to lose; I’ve just learned to deal with it better. I used to remember playing Madden 2007 on my gamecube and shutting off the game before I lost a game that ruined my perfect season (I did this a lot, I was pretty bad at the game lol). There was something about not being able to beat the computer that sent me off the deep end. I don’t know why I got so upset at losing, I did it pretty frequently! I don’t what hurt so bad about losing. I don’t think it was the absence of the dopamine that hits when you succeed; even as a kid, there was this lurking feeling when I lost that it meant more than just losing. When I lost, it was simply because that I wasn’t good enough to win. Which in a sense, is true! If I was better at whatever I was doing, it could have changed the outcome of the entire game. But somehow, every time, the sharp pain of the loss cut deeper and deeper into the core of who I was. 

You see, growing up as a kid I wasn’t too great at anything. There were so many things that I loved to do, but there was always someone better. Whether that was running, bowling, basketball, school, I was simply extraordinarily ordinary. Not truly bad at anything, but not good enough to stand out in anything as well. So every time that I tried something new, thought I was good at it, I held on to it for dear life. Is this the one thing that will define me? Will I finally be good at something? Somewhere down the line of striving to find something that I was good at, I started to believe that if I wasn’t good at anything, I must be good for nothing. The continual losses added up to define me as a loser. 

Because I had so correctly and accurately identified myself as the problem as to why I was not winning, I got even more competitive. Now I wasn’t just fighting to win at everything so that I could feel excited about winning, victory was the sweet drug of denial being shot directly into my veins. If I could just keep riding this victorious high, I would drag myself out of the pit of being a loser that I had found myself in and be something more than just that loser that wasn’t good at anything. But as everyone knows, you cant keep winning forever. 

So with every loss, I would slide back into the inescapable pit of being a failure. Being a loser. I tried new passions, hobbies, dreams, and every single one left me empty and alone in my personal pity pit that I dug with my own hands. I’d like to end my story here and say that all of these losses and my personal feeling of loss and failure was redeemed by my identity in Christ, but I just can’t. Not yet at least. Even though my faith in Christ has been the best part of beginning to love myself and see myself in a different light, I just can’t escape the feeling that I do nothing good because there isn’t anything good in me. 

I firmly believe that failure does not have to define us as humans. I firmly believe that there are some beautiful lessons that come from failure that grow and develop each and every single person that experiences it. But sometimes these lessons feel more like consolation prizes for the pain and frustration that the failure brings. The little ribbon that you get at the end of your losing season in 2nd grade soccer so that you didn’t suffer and lose all season for nothing. Failure does not have to define you, but it certainly scars you. 

Have you ever broken a bone before? It’s truly a humbling experience. One moment you’re living your life in the invincible body that God has given to you and then the next moment you recognize your fragile state of humanity with a snap crackle and pop. I remember breaking my wrist in 5th grade, and being so excited to get the cast off. My parents had bought us a water slide that summer that I was DYING to go on, but could never because of the stupid cast. So I bided my time about as well as any other impatient 10 year old could, and when I got the cast off it was go time. I jumped off the slide headfirst and flew off of the slide and my very first thought was “What if I broke my wrist again.” In a world where I never had a second thought about my health and safety, I was now scared in a way that I never was before.

That’s what failure feels like to me. We are blessed and able to continue to live after our failures, but our bodies and our minds are never the same. We become more hesitant to try again, to put ourselves out there, to dream as big as we once did. The creeping feeling of “What if this doesn’t work out?” Eats away at our confidence to do the things that we so desperately want to do. But if we persevere through the fear of failure, we produce something new and beautiful in us; boldness. We know and feel the pain of failure and yet we continue to live our lives. To take chances. To put ourselves out there. Not knowing the future outcomes. Knowing that the pain of failure and loss could be lurking behind every corner, we boldly pursue our dreams until we open the door to our success; or our haunting feelings of failure become a reality that has set in once more. 

I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about failure so much. I think it’s because the closer I get to realizing my dreams, the more scary they become. With Light & Life being freshly published by the time this comes out, I want to say that I was boldly pursuing my dreams even if I’m still the same scarred kid that hates to lose with every fiber of his body. And I hope that you can read this and realize that you carry the scars of your failures on your body and those scars make you beautiful and bold. Your failures only define you if you create the definition yourself. Write a new definition for yourself. Remember the failures and losses that you carry and see how strong you are. Allow that strength to build into boldness to keep dreaming. Keep creating. Keep living. Believe and love yourself enough to live above your fears. Know that failure and success are what you do, not who you are.