Benjamin Franklin, the Russians, and Forgiveness

As I was watching a popular medical tv show, a great point was made to inspire this quick little blog post.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have heard one of my friends talking about what a failure she is and how she failed one of her friends. This friend is so hard on herself and has a hard time seeing that life and friendships are not pass and fail. And instead they are about progress. You only fail when you quit.

"Do you know how many dogs the Russians sent into outer space before a person walked on the moon?"

or....

Do you realize how many "failures" Benjamin Franklin had while trying to perfect the lightbulb? 

or...

As in the case on the medical show, they were implanting a stent of some sort in a lamb to see if it would work and the lamb ended up passing. The doctors could have quit there but decided to do a necropsy to find out what went wrong and fix the problem so that others may go on to benefit from their knowledge. 

Forgiveness and life in general works the same way. If we don't look at what went wrong, we can't fix it and benefit others. If Benjamin Franklin had stopped, where would we be? If medical advances weren't pursued after failures, then what? If hearts were not attempted to fix after misgivings, mistreatment, mistakes, and hurt, then what?

"We try again, and then we fail again. Because that's what progress looks like. Progress looks like a bunch of failures." You can have feelings about the failures, you can feel sad or angry, but you can't fall apart or you wont succeed. And then after continual trying, we can and will save lives, walk on the moon, have electricity, mend hearts, forgive and be forgiven.

Benjamin Franklin said, "Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out."

So there are a few sides to this failure post that can be made...

--failure is not a bad thing or an end all, life's not pass or fail friendship is not pass or fail, trials are not pass or fail
--forgiving others can be hard, it's not a pass fail test but a continual effort
--finding forgiveness from others and the Lord is a process
--progress is made from learning from our failures

Three cheers for failure!