By Kelly Carr

Little did we know when we chose this topic that our editorial team would get a lesson on failure in the making of an issue about failure. Here’s how it went down:

• First, I failed to give the right information to one author. Strike one.

• Second, another author had something come up and couldn’t write an article for us as planned. Strike two.

• Third, I’d heard the testimony of a nationally known artist who struggled with failure in his youth. I thought his story would be perfect for this topic, and I was set up to interview him at a conference. But his plane got delayed, and there was no time to do the interview. Strike three.

Three strikes—we were out.

Sometimes we fail because of circumstances we have no say in. We fail to get a job because tons of people were interviewing for the same position. We fail to get to the appointment on time because we got rear-ended on the drive over. We fail to make it to the party because our child got sick.

Sometimes we fail because of a mistake we made. We didn’t assemble the new furniture correctly because we failed to read the directions. We didn’t pull off the event because we failed to make adequate preparations. We argued with our friend because we failed to look beyond our own point of view.

Sometimes we fail because we make sinful choices. Enough said.

But no matter the type of failure, we always have the opportunity to begin again. There is grace for us. There is hope that next time it will work out better. There is a God who stands by our side and gives us strength, even when we fail again. And he rejoices when we finally make it.

We finally got over our failures and put together some great articles for you to read. We hope they succeed in lifting you up.