Painful Regrets

Painful Regrets

Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:1-2

Kerri merely glanced at her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she splashed water on her face. She had thought going to bed with her new boyfriend would make her happy; she had thought she’d wake up glowing and smiling the way the young career women in the movie scenes do. She had been the last of her group to keep her virginity, and her friends were always kidding her about it, insisting she lived a sheltered life and needed to loosen up and live life the way it was supposed to be lived. So last night, knowing her roommate would be out of town for the rest of the week with her boyfriend, Kerri had planned a romantic dinner, complete with candlelight and soft music. After the raspberry torte, she had led her boyfriend to her bedroom, where he stayed until after midnight.

Now, instead of smiling, she was trying not to look at herself in the mirror. She hadn’t counted on this empty, lost feeling in the pit of her stomach and her sense of dread at the thought of running into him in the coffee room. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be at all. She buried her face in the towel and sobbed, “I can’t believe I made the wrong choice. Oh, I want to go back to the way I was!”

—SANDRA

Lord, when I was a child, we could call, “Do over!” during our games, thereby erasing the mistake and starting the activity again. I wish I could subject my bad decisions as an adult to the same “Do over” rule. Instead, I must face the consequences and the regrets of my impulsive, selfish, or wrong choices. Help me to lean on you. Give me the wisdom I need to make better choices in the future.

We must not fall into the confusion of mistaking normal aloneness, which is intended to draw us to God, with loneliness.

—EUGENIA PRICE (1916–1996), AMERICAN AUTHOR