Thanks for stopping by today! If you found your way here from my P31 devotion, I’m so glad you stopped by. I promised to share some practical ways we can fail forward with God’s help in areas where we most often feel defeated.
Failing forward is about rising again and doing the best you can the next time. It’s also about giving yourself grace when your best isn’t as good as you want it to be.
If you really want to move forward when you have a setback, first determine one or two areas of your life that are most important for you to start seeing progress. Then ask yourself these questions:
What makes you feel like you are failing in each area? (when I yell, when I overeat, when I lie, when I…)
List common things that keep you from succeeding? (tiredness, busyness, unorganized)
How do you feel when you fail in those areas? (depressed, angry, sad)
Who can determine the actions you take or reactions you have?
What is one change you can make so that you see at least a little progress in one area?
Now, ask God to show you how you can take one step forward with His help in that area. Then another.
Set a goal or boundary, that you will commit to today to keep from falling again. Then stick to it. I know you can and I’ll be praying for you!!!
Please also ask God to show you the progress you’ve made and how you are becoming the woman He created you to be. We need to encourage our hearts and notice our progress or we’ll always feel defeated!
Also, click here to read why it’s important that we don’t give up, and how we can learn to get up and keep going! But first, let me know how I can pray for you today by sharing your thoughts and goals in today’s comments.
Tomorrow I’ll share some more thoughts in specific areas, and I’ll do a fun give-away from your comments today – so be sure to leave your email, too! I’ll announce last week and this week’s winners on Friday!
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Wendi, what a tricky spot to be in. I have another friend that is going through the same thing. Would be happy to talk to you about it if you could e-mail me.
Darlene
I am having troubles being a step-mom. I have been in this role for 7 years now and it just keeps getting worse. My hubby and I have just started seeing a counselor and he tells me that me being the lead parent is not my job. I am to back off and my husband is to become the lead parent again as he was over 7 years ago. I am having a really hard time letting go and realizing that I didn’t get demoted; that I had taken on a job that wasn’t mine to begin with. Not to mention I feel like there are 2 sets of rules for our kids. One that I impose on my daughter and one my husband has for my step-son. I also am feeling that what I say doesn’t matter.
I know this will take some tweaking and adjustment but I just don’t feel like I can handle it. It is making me more angry than less. And hubby has invited ss to our counseling session next week. I don’t think I am ready for that. I think we still have issues to work through on our own. I haven’t told him that yet though.
So please pray for me. My sanity, my ability to let go of the lead parent role and my relationship between me and my hubby and me and my ss. Not to mention my sweet 5 year old who is caught in the middle of all this.
I just read your blog today that followed Failing Forward- it was great and gives hope to those of us who struggle with failures of some type in our lives. I guess we have them! Thanks for your prayers for all who read your blog!
I also read the blog on your friend who is struggling with cancer. I am really praying for her today. Last night in my 9th grade girls small group at church, we talked about grace and how God’s gives us grace we don’t deserve. The girls shared experiences of where they saw God’s grace in a non material way. One told of her step mom who has cancer and was only given one year to live- it’s seven years later and she is still alive. We talked about how God can give grace which is followed by blessings even in a situation such as cancer. These girls are great! They truly see God’s grace!
Nanci Alsup
[email protected]
I just read your blog today that followed Failing Forward- it was great and gives hope to those of us who struggle with failures of some type in our lives. I guess we have them! Thanks for your prayers for all who read your blog!
I also read the blog on your friend who is struggling with cancer. I am really praying for her today. Last night in my 9th grade girls small group at church, we talked about grace and how God’s gives us grace we don’t deserve. The girls shared experiences of where they saw God’s grace in a non material way. One told of her step mom who has cancer and was only given one year to live- it’s seven years later and she is still alive. We talked about how God can give grace which is followed by blessings even in a situation such as cancer. These girls are great! They truly see God’s grace!
Nanci Alsup
[email protected]
Renee,
Thanks for offering to pray for us. Today, what’s on my heart is getting my children to obey without being controlling. I want to be loving and a good listener. Sympathetic as well but I don’t want my kids to be manipulative. I need guidance in teaching my kids to stand up for biblical convictions and not follow what other kids do, even when they know what the other child is doing isn’t right. Yesterday, my 6 and 4 year old boys turned on the hose even when they knew they were not suppose to. When I heard the water running, I checked on them. Before I had a chance to say anything out of their mouths came, “We don’t know how the hose got turned on, we didn’t do it!” Like the hose turned on all by itself. They both had bucket in one hand and an umbrella in the other! I have to say I’m not looking forward to summer and my 3 kids being out of school as usually do this year. Last summer was challenging. I feel like I’m a constant referee and a lot of fussing is going on. I need prayer for this summer. I need prayer for our words that come out of our mouths, for chores that need to be learned and done, for selfish attitudes and for my energy level. I want to be a fun Mom and do fun things with them but I feel many times they are not behaving well to go and do things and I dread those activities so we don’t do them. Sorry for rambling on. Thanks for lifting me up in prayer.
Good morning Renee,
I just had an opportunity to read the devotional on rising again…and I must say this is really on time for me right now…I am a young lady who has failed at love…just this morning…the man who came into my life to love me and to want to build a future me has finally given up…and he told me it has been over for a while but he had a glimmer of hope that things would get better…I am a teacher in the world and of the Word…and you know it is so much easier to encourage and be an encourager than to take it and invest it into my own self…I ruined this relationship by not letting go of the past…being inconsitent in my actions…not fully following through things i have promised..procrastinatinating…being not fully trustworthy in what i say or do…i know i love this man…but I finally had to take things from his perspective stop being a baby and just see how he was feeling in the matter…and really understand why he was letting me go…why he could not take how I was handling his heart anymore…Right now at this very moment…I feel like a big empty failure…trying to find courage in the Lord…trying to not just fall deeper into depression…I am single mom who has had a laundry list of horrible relationships even with my own father…whom I had to politely show the door after he used my kindness of me opening up my home to him and disrespected its sanctity…I go to God in prayer but I don’t know where else to turn…I just ask that you prayer that God will show me how to use this failure to his glory that he allow me to see the good of this failure and to show me how I can pick up the pieces and move on and be the confident woman that God has purposed to me…Thanks for your inspiration…I thank God for placing this word in your heart
DOakly- Check out FlyLady.com. She helps those of us who are “Side-tracked Home Executives” suffering from “Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome (Chaos).” It’s an encouraging website that helps us not to be overwhelmed with housecleaning! I struggle there, too.
God bless,
Jennifer
Hi Renee,
My name is Brenda Manning and I just want to thank you for your obedience to our Lord and the daily walk you have with Him, I know it is a sacrifice you make to spend time with Him and hear Him…that is my struggle. I seem to fail in that area. I was at the point in my life right now that I just wanted to give up on everything, being a wife, a mother, a woman of integrity, going to church and on God cause I thought He was working so slow at things in my life. God used your devotion to encourage me not to give up and that I am not perfect. God spoke to me that if I just obey Him that He’ll do the rest…and that a part from Him I can do nothing. For a long time I felt I had to prove myself to people cause of the person I use to be, oh I was an awful person, and found out that I have only an audience of One and my life is for Him and no one else, that if I just live my life for Christ everyone will see and know that I am not the person I use to be, God will take care of that part. My old life sneaks back up on me and tells me that I’m a failure, that I’ve always been a failure and that nothing I do will ever be good enough. I know that’s just the enemy cause he sees how I am growing now and desire righteousness. I am encouraged once again and know my Father loves me just the way that I am and that He will give me what I need to be the wife, mother, woman that He created me to be so long as I seek him with all my heart. I love the verse in Jer. 29:13, my very first bible opens with that verse and the title of my bible is The Journey A Bible for seeking God and understanding life. You shall seek me and find me when you seek Me with all your heart. God’s Word is alive and true, I think we need to start back there, seeking out our first love with all our hearts as women, I long for change in that area of my life.
Thank you Renee for being obedient and serving the Lord with your life and being an encouragement to me today in the life you walk in Christ. Brenda
I was about to email my husband(who’s in Saudi Arabia) a quite “negative” letter ’till i put it off and God made me read the devotion for today “Rising Again”.
I passed thru one of the “darkest” moments in my life lately and is on the healing stage now. I was about to give in to satan’s nagging and let go of what i have started to truly work on and be what God would want me to be as a wife and mother then i read this devotion.
I am desperate to immerse myself in things or articles like this so as not to give up what i have resolved to do-and that is to have my security not on people, or circumstances, but in Him alone.
Thank u. God is truly helping me through your ministry even before I was a member.
I am a Filipina and I Praise The Lord for using you to touch my life.