Failure Isn't A Bad Word

I'm so sorry that I haven't posted all week until now.  Life has just been busier than usual lately and there were other things that I had to attend to first.

Lately, God has been speaking to my heart

quite loudly about not being so hard on myself

when  I've failed at something.

Whether it be in the past, presently or in the future.

I imagine,

there are others of you out there 

who are sometimes hard on yourselves too. 

I thought I'd share some encouraging things

today that God has been showing

me and hope it will encourage YOU also.

I think we are often much like this bird with the

parachute on his back.  

We carry around extra baggage,

that we think is 

going to save us incase we fail. 

Actually, the bird without the parachute

knows the only way to really soar

is to 

take the chance even if afraid.

To me this saying said: quit procrastinating Lee Ann! 
Challenge yourself.

I don't procrastinate as much as I did last year.

I have made progress in that area

and I think it's because

I have made myself continue to take

some sort of ACTION on a daily basis,

and most of the time it's a very small step, such as

spending 10 minutes on some painting project instead of

none at all that day, or 

going up to the wonderful woman speaker

that touched my heart today with her story

 and asking her if we could meet and 

talk more in the near future over lunch.

I do feel that God wants me to step out and
do some speaking, 
but I've been afraid

to take the steps to make it happen-so this

was a biggy for me to approach her

and ask this....and you know

what she said?  She said she would love to meet

and she thanked me and said that in every 

audience she  finds someone who

encourages her while she is speaking. 

She told me thank you

and that I was the one that did that for her today 
in the crowd.

That blessed my heart and I believe that

 God was blessing me through her,
for going ahead and approaching her

even though I was afraid!

I've been reading the book "Failing Forward"
by John Maxwell.
Wow!  It's a great book and I am learning 
that I have some stinkin thinkin
that I'm going to change about failing.
some of his quotes:

    

""There is no achievement without failure."

"The difference between average people and

achieving people is their perception of and

response to failure."

"Get up, get over it, get going!"

So tell me, what are you afraid of, or what has helped
you look at failing as a positive?