In the early years of homeschooling, I began to re-evaluate the role of failure in life. I’d spent a good portion of my adult years berating myself for stupid mistakes, wasted time, and the like – to the ironic point of wasting more time stupidly dwelling on past mistakes. It changed when I noticed my ungodly habit rubbing off my kids and recognized the absolute desolation of refusing to learn from past mistakes.

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
(2 Corinthians 7:10)

Instead, I began to tell my children what I had learned from mistakes. When they failed at something, I would repeat a phrase they likely grew sick of hearing over the years: never waste a good mistake.

I meant it. The usefulness of failure became clear to me during an afternoon chat with a neighbor on her front porch. She mentioned failing statistics several times in high school and talked about how much she hated standard deviations and probabilities. When she caught my blank stare, she asked, “Don’t you remember?”

I did not.

Ironically, I’d aced the class. Yet as the conversation progressed, it became clear she remembered far more statistics than I did despite her failures and my apparent success.

As I took this new thought to the Lord, He showed me where my personal areas of failure were now lessons more deeply etched than those areas I’d skimmed over by succeeding.

Because of this realization, I determined to not only allow my children to fail but to show them how to best learn from it. I didn’t withhold the large red X on incorrect problems, and I resisted the trend in my circles to give them straight As at the end of each grading period.

Instead, I graded appropriately. Good grades were earned, not granted. Whenever work was done incorrectly, I would bring the graded paper back to my little pupil and have them rework the problem. Together, we would think through what went wrong.

However, I did not change the grade. Instead, I provided a chance to learn from mistakes so the next grade would be better.

I wanted to challenge them, and I wanted them to fail so they would see failure is not an end. It is not a thing to be feared. Instead, failure is merely another step in the journey. In truth, failure can even be a more memorable step than instant success. Whatever we wrestle through, we tend to recall more vividly.

I’m convinced this is part of why God allows us to fail. By failing, we see our own fragility; our weakness and need for Him. Also by failing, we learn not to be afraid to try because we discover failure is not so bad, after all.

In fact, through failure, we learn humility and to better trust the God who never fails.

"Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, 
remember the former things of old; 
for I am God, and there is no other; 
I am God, and there is none like me, 
declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done,
 saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,'
(Isaiah 46:8-10)