You have permission to fail.

Being creative takes bravery. Making something on your own for the first time takes a million little leaps of faith. It takes a bit of guesswork (I think this looks right...). It also takes the understanding that things might not always turn out quite right.

A few days ago I was trying a new dessert recipe that called for a caramel sauce topping and was a bit vague on details. I've never made a caramel sauce before. I tried it once. It didn't really work (it was super-gritty), but I was almost out of brown sugar and completely out of butter. I was hot. I was cranky. And I was not in the mood for a trip to the store. After a conference/pep talk with my husband, I ran to the store down the street and picked up the supplies I would need to make the caramel.

Coming home, my second batch flopped. My morale tanked. There may have been tears of frustration. My husband came back inside and eventually, together, we got it right (or close enough, anyway...).

Why did I get so stinking emotional over caramel sauce?

I wasn't allowing myself the space to fail at trying something new. I was letting myself be defined by the failure rather than by the fact I was brave enough to try something new in the first place.

More than that, my significance in life does not come from my ability to make a silky-smooth caramel; rather, it lies in the fact that I am a child of God. How easily I lose sight of that! Kitchen, crafts, cleaning, caring, teaching... those are the things I do, but they do not define who I am.

I can be brave. I can try doing new things. And, I can give myself permission to fail...

Because at the end of the day, God won't love me less.

Romans 8:38-40
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.