Failure

 Someone shared a poem with me that has been deeply touching in light of what feels like failure.  To all those who have failed....

A Call to Failure

I had a call to a mission,
Signed in my heart and sealed,
And I felt my success was certain,
And the end seemed already revealed;
The sea was without a murmur,
Unwrinkled its even flow,
And I heard the master commanding,
And I was constrained to go.

But, out from the peaceful haven,
There woke a terrible storm,
And the waves around were in chaos,
And the land appeared without form
And I stretched my hands to the Father
And cried in a chilling fear—
“Didst not Thou pledge Thy presence!
And naught but failure is here!”

Then in the midst of the thunder
There rose a still, small voice,
Clear through the roar of the waters,
Deep through their deafening noise:
“Have I no calls to failure!
Have I no blessing for loss!
Must not the way to thy mission
Lie through the path of thy cross!”

It came as a revelation—
It was worth the price of the gale
To know that the souls that conquer
Must at first be the souls that fail—
To know that where strength is baffled
I have reached the common ground
Where the highest meet with the lowly
Where the heart of man is found.

O door of the heart’s communion
My Father gave me the key
When he called me out to the ocean,
And summoned the storm to me;
For the wings of the storm that smote me
Were the wings of humanity’s breast
As it moved on the face of the waters
And sighed for an ark of rest.

Years have gone by since that sadness
And many an hour has come
When the storm in the ships of others
Has signaled me out from home;
Yet I never can see that signal
But I feel how much I owe
To the day that, when called to failure,
My steps were constrained to go.
~George Matheson