Over the past few weeks Clara has slowly and steadily (or maybe not-so-steadily) been learning to walk. It’s been amazing to watch!

There is seriously nothing like watching a newborn toddler who you gave birth to learn to do new things on her own. Things that simply can’t be taught.

But the most inspiring thing about watching Clara learn to walk is how determined she is. Se falls every few steps, but she gets back up and continues to try. Almost every time she falls she gets a huge grin on her face and gets on her feet as quickly as she can. She knows that she can get wherever she wants to go by crawling, but she is determined to walk instead.

She doesn’t get embarrassed by her ‘failed’ attempts. She doesn’t cry in frustration. She, quite honestly, doesn’t even know her attempts are failures – on the contrary, she’s quite proud of every bit of progress she makes!

Oh hey, my little redhead!

I can’t help but think how my life would change if I adopted this attitude. What if I saw nothing as a failure but instead as a step towards progress? What if I viewed every step forward as a success? What if I accepted myself for taking any strides, no matter how small? What if I laughed at myself more often and accepted falls gracefully? What if I was unafraid of trying something new? What if I just knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would one day succeed?

Sometimes I think that God looks at us the way I look at Clara, cheering us on in our successes and our failures, knowing that if we try a bit harder we’ll be able to overcome any obstacles. I know that He has more confidence in me than I have in myself.

At the risk of sounding cliche, I wonder what I could accomplish if I was unafraid of looking foolish and found true joy in the process, and in (what I would perceive as) failure.