I'm a Loser, Baby.

In life there are Winners and Losers. As I contemplate my 35^th birthday, I identify more with the losers. I have a sinus infection so my head hurts and there is thick gunk oozing from my nose. I quit trying long ago, so I am currently un-showered, wearing an Alice in Wonderland T-shirt, my greasy hair is partially covered by a mismatched hippie headband and of course I’m sporting an oversized grandma sweater with a handful of used tissues and cough drops in the pocket.

I am still living in my identical twin sister’s basement. It is a lovely and newly renovated basement, but it is still her basement that I rent for $300 a month.  I carpool with her husband, babysit her child and anxiously await the arrival of her newest addition. I love my nieces and nephew, but when they are sick, they run to Mommy, not Brit Brit. Despite this, I am the one who catches all their nasty germs.

Don’t get me wrong, my family is pretty awesome and they all think I am a real winner. My mom thinks I am pretty… grandma sweater and all. Despite their best efforts to convince me of my wins, life keeps attempting to convince me otherwise.

In 8^th grade all my friends were shoe-ins for middle school superlatives. They convinced me to campaign for the one superlative unclaimed… NICEST.  There are very few things more embarrassing than being the only person campaigning for an 8^th grade superlative and still losing. To be fair, I wasn’t nice. The last few months have felt like 8^th grade all over again, just without braces and with a LOT more caffeine.

This picture is actually about teenage bullying. In real life, I was probably the bully, hence NOT NICEST.

In preparation for the Easter season, I am reading about the journey to the cross. On the night before his betrayal, Jesus, in all His kindness, told Peter about how he would fail Christ, publicly. Peter didn’t believe him. “ME, fail!?!? No way!” And so, with the sound of each rooster crow, the earth beneath Peter’s feet shook, breaking down a portion of his once sturdy wall of pride and self-righteousness (Luke 22:54-62). Through the broken wall, where his SELF-worth once stood, Peter could see clearly the One left standing, the perfect One, Jesus Christ. Peter’s greatest failure led to His greatest blessing. He became less. Jesus became more.

So as I reflect on my 35 years of life, I realize that I have more failures and regrets than I expected, but there is also more freedom in this realization than I expected. I am not perfect, and I can stop pretending to be. I don’t have it all together, and it would be a lie to think that is even a possibility.  As you read this, I ask for you to resist the urge to rebuild my wall of pride, by telling me I am a winner. It isn’t true. Instead, I invite you to join me in loser club; the price of membership: acknowledging your own humanness, failures and inadequacies and allowing others the freedom to be human. The thing is, there is a LOT of freedom in failure, mediocrity, and Pinterest fails. I am not giving you excuses to quit trying, I am giving you a reason to worship.

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3: 7-8).