Isn’t it amazing how God can take our mistakes and turn them into something beautiful?

For one of my daughters, life has been like a musical. Her grade school teachers repeatedly asked her to stop singing out loud during class. In the car, she sang along to every song on the radio, drowning out the original performer. She was the first child to join the adult choir at church. And she was good: perfect pitch, clear tone, and a voice as robust as any opera singer. No one was surprised when she signed up to perform in the fifth-grade talent show.

She chose to sing, “My Heart Will Go On,” from Titanic. It was perfect for her: she can sing Celine Dion better than Celine. She was poised and confident as she walked out onto the stage.
But what came out that night was not the strong, powerful voice we all knew. Instead, it was barely a whisper, a soft, gentle, mesmerizing voice that left the audience breathless. “That was genius!” I whispered to Neil, assuming she had consciously chosen to sing as she did even though she had never practiced it that way.

Later, after she held the first-place award, I asked what prompted her to sing so different than usual. “I couldn’t help it,” she explained. She got unexpectedly nervous and couldn’t project her voice. Up on the stage, she was disappointed, thinking she failed. Despite the applause and the prize, it wasn’t until she eventually watched the video that she realized how remarkable her sweet voice sounded.

The story is one of my favorite reminders that we can’t always see the fruits of God’s work in our lives. It’s easy to believe that we aren’t good enough, that we make too many mistakes, or that our efforts are wastes of time. Yes, we all know that feeling. Sometimes I’m discouraged when my blog posts aren’t shared, or my articles go unread, or only five people show up to an event I worked hard to plan. But then I remember my daughter’s song. Maybe the one person who read my blog was the one person who needed to hear it. Maybe the handful of people at my event are the ones most in need of hospitality.

God can work through what we perceive as failures. He can make miracles out of our mistakes. So even if you think your attempts are unsuccessful, keep at it, and watch to see what God will do.

colleen

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