Flourishing Failure

Last spring, we began a worm bin, a fun little project in which dead leaves, table scraps, and a handful of worms transform an old trash can into a compost factory.

Like so many of our well-intentioned projects, however, the worm bin kind of, sort of, somehow... Let's be honest... failed.

(Since we're being honest, I'll tell you that it kind of, sort of, somehow failed because I kind of, sort of, somehow forgot to do more than periodically throw in a bowl full of fruit and vegetable scraps).

So when our "compost mentor" asked how our worms were doing and if we'd been watering the bin, I smiled and hung my figurative head in shame. Then I went home, poured some water over the dead leaves and scraps of rotting food, and stirred it up a little. 

And because the darkening sky threatened to let loose a deluge, I left the trash can lid open.

Several days later, because... Let's be honest... neglect is a hard habit to break, I revisited our little failure of a worm bin, and this is what I found:

I'm not gardener enough to tell you with any certainty what these plants are. I have my ideas, but I won't embarrass myself. The point is, things are growing, flourishing even, right in the middle of my failure of a worm bin.

And the other point, far more inspirational than random vegetables sprouting in my worm bin, is that failure isn't always failure. I have read several reports of parents feeling like failures lately. Whether failures as home educators or failures as classroom parents or just plain failures as parents, I think we have all, at one point or another, felt the defeat of failure.

But look at those pictures again. 

Trash and dirt and worms. 

A crummy, neglectful gardener.

And out of it all, Life, beautiful and good.

However ugly, dirty, and thoughtless your life is, it's not the end of the story.  The Creator of the universe, who causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall even on a neglected worm bin, can turn your failures into something beautiful and good.