keep moving forward

So, I'm up way too late on a school night again, and am feeling the need to update. Here, in no particular order, are some update-y-ish items:

Weight loss: I've lost 16.1 pounds so far. I'm about halfway to my goal. Yay :)

Movies: We saw Meet the Robinsons on Friday. Very cute movie. I walked away from it with some deep thoughts (surprise, surprise...ISTJ/melancholy me thinking deeply about a freaking Disney movie...). One of the themes of the movie had to do with failure--how you view it, whether you choose to dwell in the past or look ahead and move forward. In one of the scenes, the little orphan boy main character has one of his inventions blow up in his face (something which, incidentally, had happened earlier in the movie and resulted in prospective parents rejecting him as an adoption candidate. Talk about having an event trigger memories of rejection and painful feelings about one's self worth!).

The second time this happens, however, the family around him erupts in cheering and applause. I think one of them even says, "You failed!! That's wonderful!!" Being a family of inventors, they had learned from experience that it had taken many failures for them to learn all they needed to learn to finally succeed. And so, from their perspective, failure was a necessary (and even good) part of the whole process. I think I started to tear up during that part, and again at the end when the little orphan boy starts to put the pieces together and see how the "keep moving forward" theme applies to his own little life. His little life that he, at the beginning, views as insignificant, but by the end views very differently.

I've been pondering this quite a bit, as it relates to my own life. My own fears of failure (which have lessened a lot over the past couple years, but are still very much there). My own tendencies to want to quit if something doesn't come easily immediately. My own instincts to run and hide when my weaknesses are displayed for the world to see. I think of Paul, who thanked God for his weaknesses. Who, after decades of painful maturity, finally began to put the pieces together and see his failures as a necessary (and good) part of the whole, wonderful, beautiful process.

I think I want that.

Well, maybe that's all for tonight. I'm not good at bullet points. They always turn into paragraphs.