My resume of failure

Lately I've been feeling like a no-good failure. I am trying to market myself to graduate schools which requires a resume. My list of acheivements is very short. My test scores are terrible, my awards and special honors are close to none, my ensemble chair placement is very low for my class and experience level, my GPA is average at best, and my work ethic is terrible. I am not very productive or efficient. I have trouble completing very basic tasks which are essential to my future. The good teachers out there work hard to cater to a variety of learning styles such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. My learning style doesn't easily mesh with any of these styles. In short, the world considers me mediocre, if not a failure.

My mother wrote on this subject recently:

Then I think how easily we misunderstand what's required of us. How we bounce between shame and bravado. How we just don't get it that our only option is to fall on the mercy. That only the mercy can save us. That only the mercy has power.

I'd like to say we don't get to disqualify ourselves because of failure. We're called to serve: Feed my sheep. Hail Frodo of the Nine Fingers. Four precious children to raise.

Shame has no place in mercy.

And we don't get to qualify ourselves because of competence. It's only the mercy.

Failure + mercy = power. Power released through humility. Redemption empowered by grace. Treasure in earthen vessels. Strength made perfect in weakness. The depth of the riches of the glory of Christ...

Dawn thinks it's a blessing that my strengths are not quantifiable, and I've had to take some time to consider why she said that. My strengths can't really be measured with awards, tests, special honors, ensemble chair placements, or the way I learn. The members of the panel who are to decide my admittance to their school will never comment, "Look at the listening skills on that guy!" just as a typical college guy won't say, "Did you see the brains on that girl?!" They frankly don't care. The world demands tangible proof of my worth.

Since I can't usually prove my worth outside of the Bible, I end up being pulled towards humility. And not by choice. Dawn probably considers this a blessing because worldly success is actually a curse. It causes us to seek pleasure, wealth, affluence, fame, happiness, and everything else which doesn't last or satisfy. Worldly success also gives us the illusion that we belong in the world, and that we certainly don't need God: someone who is also not easily quantified.

Praise God that when He opens up personal assistant positions, my resume of failure is exactally what He is looking for.