Coping with Regrets

       All of us live with some regrets, so as I began researching an upcoming sermon, I scanned the internet for what secular bloggers typically offer people struggling with regret.   

     Some of the advice out there is generally sound, although it sometimes suffers from a tendency to minimize the severity of our most troubling regrets.  “You are only human.  You are entitled to mistakes.  Don’t be so hard on yourself,” bloggers say.   Yet, I doubt the man who has ruined his marriage and hurt his children really believes that his problem is that he’s judging himself too severely.

      There’s also advice out there which seems a bit preachy to me.  There is the blithely simple: “Learn from your mistakes.  Don’t do it again.”  There is the sometimes plausible, “Be thankful you can rectify your mistakes.” Then there is the ever standard, “Learn to forgive yourself, and move on.”

     What all of this self-help fails to grapple with is that our failures, misjudgments and ethical lapses all bring about a very real cost.  Four years ago my wife and I discovered Ross Department stores on the East coast while on vacation, and I told her I wanted to invest over $1,000 in them.  Yet, I simply failed to act.  Ross has since rose 60 points on the NASDAQ. I don’t think I could quit kicking myself for not investing if I didn’t know I have far greater riches still available, riches that are forever insured.

      I also regret coaching my children the way my Dad coached me.  The problem with that, of course, is that I’m not my Dad and my kids are not me.  The kids bear in their souls the cost of that mistake.  I’ve told them I’m sorry. I strive to do better.  But they still bear that cost.  Such costs remain even when we want to forgive ourselves.  Regrets will likely maintain a compulsive hold on us unless we accept that there is one who alone can bear such cost, who forgives us and offers healing and recompense to those we’ve hurt both now and forevermore.