Stress and Regrets

In the previous blog, Stress and Worry, I mentioned that I had once read in a book that worry is one of our greatest enemies.  Regret would be a close second.  How many of us struggle with regrets that we should have done things differently?  Just to give an example, before the housing market escalated in our city, houses were moderately priced and affordable, so that an average salary would be enough for a small family to live comfortably.  Many people, including myself and my husband, wished we had bought then.  But there are other regrets that have to do with relationships, which are far more weighing.  We may have said something harsh to someone, only to regret it moments later.  Or we may have mistreated someone who is now gone, and we can’t make things right, and so we live with regret that we should have treated them better when we had the chance.

I have heard people go on and on about how they should have raised their children differently, and stated how much they regretted not being there for them as much as they should have.  There’s that word “should” again.  Any time I hear the word “should,” I cringe.  “Should” implies that there is something amiss.  I did something wrong, I am missing something, or I don’t quite measure up.  In all things in life, there is always someone or something to compare ourselves to.  In school, you may only be getting B’s.  Someone else is getting A’s.  You may really like your 1000 square foot bungalow, but the neighbour beside you has just built a 2000 square foot two-story beauty.  Your friends have traveled the world, and you have only traveled in your own country, or maybe not at all.  Your sibling had four children and you only had two, or one.  Perhaps you are still single and all your friends are married or getting married.  In each of these scenarios, there may be envy as well as regret that we never reached the same heightened status of someone else. 

When it comes to regrets, there is often very little we can do about our past mistakes.  But when it comes to relationships, we need to make things right with God and others first and foremost, and then see if we can redeem or fix some of our mistakes, but we can’t ever go back.  What’s done is done!  I’d like to share a personal story about one of my regrets in life, to show that sometimes regrets can be redeemed into something better.  For many years I lived with the regret that I never completed my college education.  I only partially completed the first of a two year gruelling course in Journalism.  It was a four year university course crammed into two years, and I just couldn’t handle the heavy course load at the time.  Yet journalism was my career of choice.  I tried to go back, but by then, I couldn’t afford the time or the money.  I needed to work to pay my rent and car expenses.  So, instead of going back to college, I began university as a mature student and went to night school so I could get my Bachelor of Arts degree, with a major in English.  I worked a regular day job and at night went to school.  I did this for six years and then I graduated.  I received a type of education that led me to doing what I do today – write books.  Without the university education, I may never have had the necessary skills or experience to be able to write books.  So in a way, my regret was redeemed into something even better.

There are many stories of people who regretted their past lives, but turned their mistakes into something wonderful that benefited many other people.  Every professing believer in Christ will have this story to tell – of how God redeemed their life of sin and turned it into something brand new and wonderful.   Saul used to kill Christians, and then God got ahold of him and he became the Apostle Paul and wrote most of the New Testament.  Do you think Paul had regrets?  I’m sure he did, but rather than dwell on them, he focused on the saving grace of Jesus, and glorified the God who saved him from a wretched life.  This is what he said:

Galatians 6:14  But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.  KJV

When you think of it, any time we focus on ourselves, whether it’s our abilities or our failures, this is pride.  We are really stealing the glory from God, who has saved us, forgiven us, and has let us start life over again.  True humility is to not only repent of our mistakes, but to turn away from them altogether.  This means we will not even think about them again.  Instead, we will focus on the now and pour our creative energies into the many tasks at hand.  After all, we have a job to do.  We can help people and perhaps even save some from making mistakes that they will regret later, most notably, to show them our victorious life, and share the Good News of the Gospel message.  Regrets only give us long faces and leave us and others in a cloud of darkness.  The reality of our redemption and all that it entails raises us higher and this is what lights up the world. 

I hope you feel encouraged today to leave your regrets in the past, and move forward to think and do great things, not only for your own benefit, but for the benefit of many others, and mostly, to glorify God.