“You what?” I blurted.
I did not believe what I was hearing. Two months ago, I had met a sponsor who gave his word that he’d sponsor a full-time PA and an intern for us until we obtained charity status.
Shortly after, a wonderful candidate applied. We were thrilled. God seemed to have had all this worked out. After a season of relentless trials and heartbreak, everything was finally coming together.
I kept the sponsor up to date weekly. When it was time to transfer the funds, he said, “You need to work on your vision and mission more. I’ll sponsor just six months for a PA for now.”
My heart sank. What was this? Suddenly, from dry land, my feet paddled in deep water, with ankle weights dragging me down into a ferocious undercurrent. My heart pounded. I felt lightheaded.
What did he just say? Why did he not mention this upfront?
We were already in the midst of on-boarding our new staff. My board and I discussed. We considered revising the vision and mission to make it more applicable to youth-at-risk. We reverted to the sponsor, only to have him say “Let’s reconvene in a few months.”
There I was, having swum all the way out to sea for a life raft, to find myself all alone, with nothing but driftwood. My mentors advised me to stay away from the sponsor, who seemed to now hold an agenda of his own. While I appreciated his coaching, my mentors didn’t resonate with his start-stop/only-if promises.
My heart, scarred, froze. I did not know how to react, how to reconcile this news with the incredible story I had previously perceived to be God’s narrative of faith. I write this- surrounded by an incredible landscape of the wild mountains of Eswatini in Africa, reading Brene Brown’s book “Rising Strong”- a book about vulnerability, shame resilience and daring to rise again.
She writes-“We need more people who are wiling to demonstrate what it looks like to risk and endure failure, disappointment and regret- people willing to own their stories, live their values and keep showing up.”
Too often in my life when I get down from speaking on stage, I feel like kicking myself when people come up to me to say “Wow, that was a great story. Your life is amazing.”
I finally said one day, “You’re seeing about 15 years of waiting, weeping, hurling words of hurt at God even, compressed into a twenty minute sermon of faith. So yes, for sure it sounds remarkable. But real life hurts. Twists and turns hurt. Waiting for hope hurts.”
I read on- “If we are brave enough often enough, we will fail- this is the physics of vulnerability. Daring is saying ‘I know I will eventually fail and I’m still all in.’ ”
Could I afford to fail? Was what I set out to do worth it? With the responsibility of finding funds to pay a close-to-full-time staff to help grow the work, especially as our family transits to humanitarian work abroad… did I screw up? Hear God wrongly?
“The middle space is… when you’re “in the dark”- the door has closed behind you. You’re too far in to turn around and not close enough to see the light…. “The point of no return” is the dark middle where military pilots have too little fuel left to return to the originating airfield… struggle is a non negotiable part of the process.”
I wondered how many people have felt this way before, and yet, was overcome by shame to share their meandering stories of grit. The truth is- we all need more stories of failure and disappointment. It’s the soil on which resilience and grit can grow.
Fancy success stories which skip past disappointments, only deepen the misconception that failures are for losers. We fear sharing- harboring a secret shame that it reflects a lack of faith in God, or a falling short of His provision and grace.
The sponsor might not have come through. But the words of an old man on a bike that day who brought me to my final destination, reflecting His heart, still rings true- “I go with you- all the way.”
In your story of failure, can you see redemption in the mire? Can you hold the tension between twists and turns in the plot, while trusting God is weaving His story together?
“To strip failure of its real emotional consequences is to scrub the concepts of grit and resilience of the very qualities that make them both so important- toughness, doggedness, and perseverance… People who wade into discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are the real badasses.”
The devastation felt so great at the time that I felt suffocated with loss. I asked God for relief. A little bit of space and respite. A break. Perhaps confirmation that it was okay to fold it all up. Call it a day. Ring the bell and end the match.
I still had the US entity of Kitesong Global. Folding up the Singapore entity felt painful but if I could not sustain the staff member we critically needed to grow a vibrant local team while I eventually served in a developing country away from home, how would it work out?
As our car rolled through Eswatini, a beautiful land of rolling hills and granite rocks against the wildest skies of azure blue, my heart lifted. As I savored “Rising Strong” at ungodly hours of the morning from jet lag, I realized God had answered my prayer- THIS, in the most unexpected way, was His gift to me.
As much as I had thought it was my sacrifice for Him, it was His gift to me.
This journey to Africa itself reflects the journey of leadership so many of us come on- we’ve taken the leap into the unknown, now we’re faced with the unexpected, with responsibilities far greater than our skill sets were made for, and yet- we’ve come too far to turn back.
We’re too far in, but too far from the finish line.
I read on-“We have to choose courage over comfort – we can’t have both at the same time.”
Here I was in the in-between space, swimming in vulnerability. Wondering how I will provide fairly for a remarkable young woman with a baby who has taken her own step of faith to join me in this journey.
I awoke this morning from a strange dream- knee-deep in the snow all alone in the middle of two alps. I felt God speak- that this is the loneliness of leadership, a sense of wandering in the wilderness. Yet, I had a bird’s eye view that if I kept on walking in the blizzard, I’d eventually reach the other peak.
Facebook reminded me that 4 years ago on this month, God launched Kitesong Global in an impossible event at John’s Hopkins. What He started, I must trust He will complete.
My hope is that in spite of the setbacks, disappointments, hurts and failures you’ve experienced, that you won’t be overwhelmed by a tsunami of shame.
That you won’t wait till your life is pretty and finished before telling your story.
Instead, would you, with me, take the slow, uncomfortable swim back to shore, wade through the blizzard.
Would you write your own story of setback.
Would you look to God and look beyond your situation of betrayal to remember His words “I will go with you- all the way.”
Would you hold onto hope in setback, would you hold on to faith in failure.
Perhaps, that is the only way to rise strong.
To sow into the work, visit- www.kitesong.sg/give-to-Singapore
