A Season of Failure: Chlese Jiles

About a year ago, I wrote a harvest post talking about my transition from being deeply integrated in the life of the Wesley to having to move on and start a new journey. And let me say, that journey still feels very much like it's just beginning! Since writing to you all last, I quit my part time teaching job to pursue freelance artwork full time, and this marked what I think of now as the start of a very long season of pruning for me (which I suspect is still not done!)

I have always been afraid. I could name a lot of my fears for you but just know that the most formidable and debilitating in my life has been my fear of what people might think of me/my fear of being misunderstood. When I began to discern that I needed to quit my teaching job, I was racked with anxiety. Everyday I went to work begging for some sort of divine intervention, that something out of my control would happen that could give me a way out, a way to quit without 'failing.' If you know me, I've never been much of a quitter, not because of some high morality or toughness on my part, but mostly because of that deep fear I mentioned earlier. 

"If I quit," I think to myself, "then people will see me as a failure. People will think I'm flighty. People will think I'm untrustworthy. People will think I'm weak." 

But that divine intervention, that deus ex machina moment never availed itself (at least not the way I imagined it). So I continued to leave my job everyday filled with anxiety and regret. By giving me no miraculous way of getting out of the job, I thought God was more or less saying that I needed to stay. Maybe I needed to keep pushing through. I wasn't allowed to give up. I had no reason to except that I was miserable. 

I normally hope and pray that time will reveal a clear path for me, that as long as I'm patient, a door will open up for me so that I can just be obedient and say 'yes.' Often I am too afraid to make a choice because I don't want to make a wrong one. I don't want to disappoint people who count on me or to look like I didn't think things through. Again, I don't want to be a “failure”. I believe that obediently saying “yes” to the movement of the Holy Spirit, to His summons in Scripture, and to the discernment of our sisters and brothers in Christ is perhaps the best posture we can take in life, but sometimes that looks like being the one to take action, and sometimes that action looks like having to be the one to call it quits.

Eventually through many conversations with friends and with God, the idea of quitting became less of an idea and more of a possibility that I entertained. Everyone in my life that I was close to and whom I trusted discerned and prayed with me and when I finally felt at peace with quitting, they supported me. So I quit. In my last two weeks at my job, the fear did not go away by any means, but I also found myself relieved and excited for what was to come. I was no longer miserable. I drove home with the windows down, singing songs at top volume. I felt free and felt so thankful to God for giving me the ability to take that freedom into my own hands. (For the record, no one said mean things to me or ran me out of the building. Some of my students actually cried. My coworkers made me a gift basket.)

Since this “failure”, I have really seen myself becoming more and more empowered in the knowledge that God is the one who undergirds my life and identity rather than making decisions out of the fear of man. Since I began doing freelance full time, I feel like all I'm ever doing is failing! Trying things that don't stick, selling things that no one wants to buy, receiving denied grant applications, making ugly art. But I'm trying more new things than I have since I first became a student at the Wesley. I'm being given so many more opportunities to fail, more opportunities to combat my fear of being misunderstood. The only thing I have to hold onto is my trust in the freedom that God has given me to be bold and unafraid to make my own decisions. Yet, the more I fail or spend time doing things that don't work out, the more I find what works. These failures have really grown me. I know deeply now that I don't have to be afraid to fail, or to not have it all together. I am a work in progress.

Even though I've mentioned a lot about failing, I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that in this season God has blessed me so deeply. Camellia and I have begun a collaborative art shop together! In May, I got to spend two weeks in the Blue Ridge Mountains in an amazing artist residency program! I'm also now less than two weeks away from getting married!! I've already begun to feel some of those old fears cropping up - "I don't want to fail at being a good partner to Jon. I don't want to disappoint him!" But again, with all new stages of life will come its own failures and plenty of blessings. Even as I am sometimes afraid, I'm more excited for us to be a work in progress together. So please be in prayer for us!

If you find yourself in a season of change, challenges, or failures, I lastly want to share with you my favorite scripture from Philippians 4, which has been sometimes my only encouragement on harder days over this last year: 

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Amen.

Chlese Jiles (pictured here with soon-to-be husband Jon Henderson) is a Wesley alum and former intern. She is an artist running a shop with her sister Camellia, and in her free time she enjoys watching shows with friends, crocheting, and sharing her art with the world. Chlese is a faithful exemplar and a beloved member of the Wesley community.