Recently I've come to the realization that grace is multifaceted, multi dimensional. Grace isn't just available to help you win, progress succeed stay ontop or thrive. Grace is far more, in fact grace is needed the most during times of trials, needs, failure .Grace is sufficient even in our weakest points. When we downcast when life has dealt us a hard blow. It helps soften these blows.
Grâce provides us with the strength to forge ahead even when all we feel like doing is giving up. Grace is what sustains and carries us through difficult times and out of them stronger + better. Grace is made available to enable you bear the unpleasant events that happens to us which refines us and makes us as Gold.
Recently I met with failure,feared initially but unexpected .I call myself a grace baby because all through med school I'd seen God's grace at work ,helping me pass even in miraculous ways at times when I expected to fail. So that was the version of grace I was familiar with. Little did I know, God was about to show me another side to His grace. So it was my finals and I put in every effort to make sure I passed all at once. Having a resit in final year was the worst kind of resit to have,because most of your mates would graduate and you would be left in medical school for an extra 3months in order to officially get the doctor title your mates already had and of course it would be obvious to everyone you failed. Like I said. Worst kind of resit. Alas when the results were finally pasted on the board. I searched for my matric number, hoping to see it and celebrate and boom !!! The shocker ,it was no where to be found. All my friends had passed. Majority of the class passed, both those that I felt put in a massive effort and those I felt didn't do so much.
It was devastating, I felt alone and I felt inadequate, but perhaps, here was room for grace to come in and be revealed to me in a totally different manner, His grace I had so boasted about earlier. Here was also a trial of my faith. Here was an opportunity for me to be left alone, to seem helpless and powerless, all for me to realize that in life - God is more than enough, God is my source, my strength, my all, although he uses people but I had to learn not to be dependent on people at all but dependent on Him. Though hard work pays I had to learn it wasn't about my hard work but about the mercies of God and His blessings. Success takes way more than hard work. He had to re -ingrain into me the lesson of God-dependence.
There was failure teaching me all of these lessons and even more... Many atimes we pray for God's will or some of us that know better are afraid to pray for God's will and pray for His mercies and blessings instead but those that know best knows God's will isn't always rosy, in fact it is tough to handle many a time but they know for sure His will is the ultimate best for us.
When I failed, many things ran through my mind such as I wasn't good enough, shame, even the all African mentality "aye party" who was doing me ? But ultimately I've come to terms with the fact that no matter what aye party or not, being good or bad, focusing on God His strength, being God-dependent and also you giving your best each time, even when you fail, dusting yourself up takes grace which brings you up even higher and creates a force to be reckoned with, a successor.
"I've learnt to see my failures as a step towards my goals and embrace all the lessons that come with failing, knowing overall I'd be better for it"
And besides success is much sweeter, more glorious after over coming difficulty !!!