Puree, wainscot, begonia- one mistake and you're out!

My daughter has been "into" this spelling bee thing for three years now.  She is only ten and has some success with it thus far.  I am her main study buddy which makes it all the more nerve wracking for me to see her on stage spelling words such as rendezvous, voortrekker, mukhtar and soliloquy.  The awful thing about spelling bees is that one false move and you're out!  No second chances.  Just a trip to the back row to wait for others to make a mistake and join you.

Here is Miss Anna at the Huron County Bee before she experienced a devastating loss.  Okay, she's only ten give her a break!  The good news is that previous to that competition she qualified for the Regional Bee which will be in Athens, Ohio in March.  So you win some, you bomb some!  That's life and we are learning to deal with it together.

But here's the thing I'm grateful for (among many other things in life). . . this discipleship journey is not just one wrong letter and you're out!  As if you have to be able to handle every single thing that comes your way without having any previous experience with it at all!  The word that knocked her out was a word she hadn't heard before. . . puree. . . she gave it a French ending because it is French and she learned one of the rules of French is to put an et at the end of some words.  Nice try.  Incorrect though.  It happens.  She gave it her best educated guess but it was not right anyway.  Life is like that, right? We do our best under each new circumstance that comes our way; we put into action what we know from previous experience and learning. . . and even then sometimes we fail.  The good news is that Christ is still with us!  Picking us up, dusting us off, setting us back on the journey of faith.

Thank you God for the reality of this life in Jesus Christ that reminds us daily, moment by moment, that for us who love you, who give you our lives, it is not one false move and we're out!  It's just way too much pressure!  It keeps us all stirred up inside to think that we have to be perfect. . . and we simply cannot be perfect no matter how hard we try!  Your great love for us allows us to stumble and fall,  learn and grow through our failures to the fullness of what you have called us to be- your beloved children.

I hope I will have better news for you on March 10th about how Miss Anna does in Athens.  Her goal is to make it through five rounds.  She might be out on the first round like she was in the finals in Columbus last year (begonia of all things!  She knew that one but got a bit rattled!).  But maybe I won't have any good news to share, other than the fact that Jesus will still love her no matter if she spells the words correctly or not, and so will her mama and daddy!