When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he tried over 2000 experiments before he got it to work. When a young reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times, he said; "I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.

Failure is very much a part of the human experience, and is something each of us needs to learn how to deal with. By choosing a good and positive attitude we can make failure a friend who can push us to greater heights.

I remember a time when as a missionary in India, I experienced failure. For a time I hated myself. But by God's grace, I was able to choose to make failure a stepping stone to victory. A word that gave me so much hope at that time came from my pastor. He said that God was building me a platform but that before I step on it, I first have to be broken. Those words have been fulfilled in my life today. By using failure as a tool to break and refashion me, God taught me the valuable lesson of making failure a friend.

Confucius once wrote, "Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall." Proverbs 24:16 says, "For though a righteous man may fall seven times, he rises again; but the wicked are brought down by calamity."

So when failure seems to overcome you, choose to make it your friend; as you do the Lord will fashion you into the person He has always envision you to be.