Failure and Disappointment

• September
• 4

3:11 pm Footprints history

After my last few posts sharing the inspirational Footprints story, a reader commented that there must have been disappointments along the way. So to give you a realistic picture of the Footprints journey, I thought I’d share just some of the challenges and failures …

Discouragement from within the body of Christ – When Footprints was brand new, we sought support from various church and denominational leaders. Sadly, we found that few caught our vision, and seemed to consider us a bunch of nobodies with nothing much to offer. “It’s been tried before and failed,” was just one of the more positive comments from a leader at that time! It would have been easier to understand if non-Christians had been critical, but to receive this sort of cynicism from our brothers and sisters in Christ was very difficult.

The Footprints camp – In the first couple of years of Footprints, we held a weekend retreat for our Team Members. It was such a special time of fellowship, encouragement and refreshment, that I really wanted to share it with all our readers and immediately started planning the first ever Footprints camp! I didn’t wait for God’s direction on the matter but just plunged into this exciting new idea. Not suprisingly, we only had about 3 ladies (besides our Team Members) interested in coming along so the idea had to be shelved. After promoting it so heavily, it was a little embarrassing to have to let people know it was cancelled!

Falling subscriber numbers – If I based my belief and motivation for doing Footprints purely on the number of people who take out subscriptions, I would have chucked it in a long time ago! Within the first two years we soared to nearly 250 subscribers which was tremendously exciting; however slowly it trickled off and there were times when we barely cracked the 100 mark. It was a time to trust in God and re-examine my motives for doing Footprints, as well as re-defining what “success” looked like. God clearly showed me that it was NOT a numbers game, and I came to realise that this was indeed my calling, regardless of whether we had 20 subscribers or 200. The most subscribers we have ever had was just over 450; today we have around 400. (Personally, I’d really love to crack that magic “500″ mark!)  But no matter what the subscriber numbers say, I know that God is continuing to bless women across Australia and beyond through the pages of Footprints!

Lack of funds – There have been times when our bank account has been almost non-existent. Yet every time, God has come through and provided. We praise God and pray blessings upon each and every one of our subscribers, as well as those who donate to this ministry!

Content that aroused discontent – Unfortunately I’m not perfect, and over the years have made some errors in judgement about the material which has appeared in Footprints. Some of the pieces which attracted criticism included a “funny” that gave 3 reasons why Jesus could be Jewish, black, or a woman; and a poem about “Horror-Scopes” which was very tongue in cheek, yet some readers missed the point and thought we were condoning astrology. More recently, some readers misunderstood the article on using prayer beads to enhance your prayer life.

So as you can see it has NOT all been plain sailing on the good ship “Footprints” … but still we have endured. I’m reminded of a Scripture: For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God (from Acts 5: 38 & 39, NIV).