When Failing Doesn’t Mean You’ve Failed

We walked through the woods together talking through the details of this difficult day. The moon shone through the trees and it was strangely quiet considering the island was bursting with over 100 little campers and another 50 plus counsellors, junior counsellors and ministry team members.

She was feeling pretty low about how she’d handled a situation. I knew that feeling all too well. I reassured her it would be ok; leading littles can be overwhelming, leading juniors can be overwhelming, leading adults can be overwhelming, leading can be overwhelming.  Sometimes I wonder if others know the weight most leaders carry, the desire to do it so right meeting smack up against our humanity and imperfection.

Suddenly a burst of little men came quietly bounding out of their cabin and racing across the field.  We stopped together and quietly watched as they jumped, skipped, rolled and tumbled down the hill, through the paved court, over the Ga-Ga ball pit, across the playground and into the dimly lit Dinning Hall.

It was long past lights out, what were they doing?

As we stood there assessing and wondering, waiting for a sign of a male counsellor or some sense of what was going on, out ran a junior counsellor, he is 15. He stopped mid-path seeing us standing there quietly.

“Oh hey!” He put forward! He was bouncing with positivity and youthful enthusiasm, starkly contrasted to his exasperated face just an hour before at campfire.

He looks past me to her. “Hey, you know, I know you probably think you didn’t handle that situation back there all that great. But man I think God’s using it! The boys, now, they are like so into things, we’re just running for a drink of water after their granola bars I gave them at bedtime. Thirsty, you know. And it’s going great.  Thumbs up! Hey you should give a thumbs up to the Senior Counsellor too eh, he’s doing great. Thumbs up to the other Junior too, he’s great.”

He turned to leave. We smiled at each other behind his back. Then he turned back. Maybe it was the glow of the moon playing with the shadow of the trees but he looked taller, stronger, even more assured, he looked a man.

“Yeah, you might be feeling bad about that but I just wanted to say I’ve known Heidi a lot of my life and I’ve been working under her since I was young, and you know what, she’s not handled some situations all that great a few times, like really, but here’s the thing I know, we’re gonna talk about it,

She loves me.

She’s not perfect.

She really loves Jesus. ”

Just as quickly he was more boy again and he ran down the hill after his cabin of little men and we were left there standing a little dumbfounded.

“He doesn’t know what he just said.” I whisper, as tears smart in the corners of my eyes.  “This is everything.”

Maybe leadership is less about leading perfectly and more about wholeheartidly loving through our imperfection. Loving others. Loving Jesus.

Let us fight through our desire to be elevated, to elevate ourselves and to look like we have it all together.

Instead let us stand, or kneel, or sit, arms open, often laps available in the case of littles, transparent in our humanity, our imperfection and our love for Jesus and others.

Then we will watch this world change, our families change, our relationships change. Because they will know. They will know that they are loved, we are imperfect, and we really love Jesus.