My New Way
Regrets.
Frank Sinatra apparently had too few to mention, so the song goes. A poor Sicilian kid from Jersey, Frankie could have been my father. But we have little else in common. I have enough regrets for a Guinness-Book-of-World-Record mention, and no interest in the effort.
Regrets are like a trunk full of old clothes. On days when dissatisfaction burrows beneath my skin, the trunk is there for dress-up. I might slip on an old regret, even model it in front of the mirror awhile remembering the moment it seemed good and glorious. Because that’s what regrets are, choices made, which, by default, left so many others on the table. Of course, in hindsight, the choice was a poor one.
As the Paul Simon song goes, “. . . a bad day is when I lie in the bed and I think of things that might have been.” God commanded me to get off my supine duff * and go live. Time is limited. Regrets are a monumental waste of energy. I have a mission here, and they only slow me down. Like the old clothes, they no longer fit.
I am a new creation.
Sinatra’s song declares these aren’t, “the words of one who kneels.” Well, mine are. I kneel before my Lord Jesus and ask His forgiveness. My regrets are for disobedience, disregard of others, and my own general stupidity. From the knees is a good posture.
Wallowing in regrets, after giving them up to God, for Him to deal with and make clean, is another waste. He’s washed my sins. He can handle my regrets. He can let me remember them for the lesson it taught. But the pain is now only a shadow.
There was a Star Trek movie, where Captain Kirk talked about how his pain defined him, made him the man he became. My husband prays that he will learn a lesson the first time. There is wisdom in and through our struggles when the light of God filters the experience. All the rest, like the trunk of old clothes, is merely excess baggage.