Regret

Regrets are the fruit of poor choices. Maybe we regret not going to visit Uncle Jack before he passed away. Or we regret a choice made on a warm summer evening with a boy we thought we loved. Maybe we regret harsh words spoken and a friendship broken beyond repair. One meaning buried in the origins of the word regret is “to bewail the dead.” It’s okay to feel remorse over wrongs done and to feel sad over things that might have been. But those things are over now. They’re dead. Bury each one. Mark each one with a headstone as a place of remembrance to not go back and make that same mistake again. But don’t keep digging them up. Every day is a new beginning in God, and you have the opportunity to make new and right decisions today instead of lingering over wrong decisions made yesterday or thirty years ago. If you need to ask forgiveness, do it. If you need to repent of sin, do it. If you need to say you’re sorry, don’t delay. But then get up and dust yourself off. Purpose today to make the most of a clean slate and a new beginning in Christ—and allow your children to see you living in forgiveness out from under condemnation.

WHEN YOU NEED TO HEAR HIS HEART TOWARD YOU . . .

I have swept away your sins like a cloud.

I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist.

Oh, return to me,

for I have paid the price to set you free.

WHEN YOUR CHILD HAS BEEN CAUGHT IN SIN . . .

The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.

You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.

WHEN YOU’VE BLOWN IT AS A MOM AND NEED A DO-OVER . . .

He has removed our sins as far from us

as the east is from the west.

I—yes, I alone—will blot out your sins for my own sake

and will never think of them again.