Failure may seem a curious subject with which to begin a letter which is supposed to be encouraging, even uplifting.  I have been thinking about it quite a lot lately, partly because of having experienced some, when it was unexpected, and therefore hurt the more.

However there is much to be learned from failure.  For a start, anyone who has never failed almost certainly has never tried anything that was beyond easy grasp.  If they have achieved everything they have attempted, then they have never glimpsed a vision that has stretched them, fired the imagination and the heart until they are willing to exhaust themselves in an effort to make it real, to risk pain and disappointment rather than forfeit the dream.

And surely that is to be only half alive?

We did not come here to do what is easy, and certainly never, ever to choose only what is safe.  Perhaps we need to remind ourselves more often of whose plan it was to ‘play it safe', and return whole, but without having grown.

It is dangerous to care.  Those who love can be hurt.  Safety requires you blunt your feelings, never leave yourself open to wounds or to loss, never try anything you are not certain of succeeding with, never play if you are not assured of winning before you stake anything on the outcome.  Losing can hurt!

Never try anything difficult – failure hurts.  It makes you feel bruised, aching and empty.  You can be very much alone, and think you were a fool to try.  It is hard to smile when you are the one who lost, and everybody is complimenting the winner.

It is easy to be graceful when you win.  Can you be generous also?  Can you remain humble and remember that the credit is not entirely yours?  And do not forget what it feels like to lose.  You might be the loser next time.

It is far harder to lose with grace, dignity, generosity of spirit, and above all the courage to try again, and risk losing again.  Some great dreams take many attempts, and are not bought with any small price.

Failure tests the mettle of a person far more than aiming only for that which is within the grasp.  If we are striving for something we want desperately, with a hunger that consumes from within, it tests also what our values are in ways we may not be prepared for.

What will you pay for your dreams?  How sure are you that the price will always come from your reserves, and not those of somebody else also?  How careful are you not to rob anyone if there is only one prize in this particular race?

But what are we without dreams, without aspirations to achieve something greater, create something more beautiful, more lasting, more use to others?

Without someone's dream and will to work and to dare, we would have none of the great works of art, literature, music, philosophy, none of the great inventions or discoveries.  Genius never seeks for safety, it longs to fly, indeed it must fly.  Bind it to the earth, cage it in the known, and it dies.

Have we not all within us something unique to envision and to create?  And if it is the best we can possibly do, we will not get it right the first time.

What point would there be in a life whose achievements were all accomplished at the beginning?  Then the rest would be downhill?  Surely that would be a tragedy in the deepest sense of something terrible which did not need to have happened.

Yes, failure hurts, sometimes very much.  But what could hurt as much as knowing that we had had the chance to climb to the stars, but we were afraid of the height, and so never tried?

Failure can teach humility.  I return to the ‘Gideon Principle', as I have called it, for my own reference.  When Gideon led the armies of the Israelites against an overpowering enemy, God commanded him to reduce his forces over and over again, until victory seemed completely impossible.

Why?  So that when victory did come, Gideon and his men would never forget who gave it to them.  They would not imagine it was their own, and their gratitude never fade.

A long time ago I received a blessing which warned me that no matter what success I might achieve, never to forget who gave me the talents I have.

Surely that must be true for all of us?  If we have a talent - and we all have something - probably several things, it is a trust, a stewardship, and one which can be taken away as easily as it was given, if we abuse it, or imagine it is our own and will remain so, without obligation.

Failure also can teach courage, and that it is not so difficult to ask for help, or to accept it, or to be grateful for it - truly grateful, not just a matter of words.  We should learn to acknowledge it openly, and never take credit which is not fully ours.

Yes, failure has many lessons.  The need to be taught them more than once seems to be part of our nature.  To resent this is worse still.

The greatest failure of all is to stick to the safe path, never dream, never dare, never aim high enough that the fall could hurt.  If we were not once aiming for the very top, we would not have come into this life in the first place!  We would have accepted the adversary's plan!

Don't let us lose the fire or the vision now.  Pray hard, then fly upward!