no regrets

is thinking, rethinking, remembering, prioritizing, investing, trying, moving on... everything besides regretting.

This was posted by a friend of mine on her fb page. It is so profound in so many ways that it made me pause. Regret is shame that won't go away, loss that won't stop eating away at every memory, disappointment that has no possible alternative ending. We are told to live life with no regrets but that is nigh impossible and all of us carry some if not the burden of regret into our every year. What if...I should have...book end periods of time which only seem to reflect all our failures and mistakes. Some regret plays itself out every day in consequence. What are we supposed to do with regret?

God regretted making man as He looked at the lengths we would go to run away from all that He is. So regret isn't a sin or a sign of moral failure. God did not make a mistake when He made man but even in His perfect love...our sinfulness gave Him pause. As difficult as it is to regret, it gives us humility.... Not in how we have failed but that we can fail and fail so miserably grants us a true mirror into our soul. We can easily forget, how much we need to be rescued, how everyone is drowning in their own regrets...that humility escapes our outlook and we become arrogant, pious and useless. Regret is humiliating...

No regrets is possible only if we ignore the capacity to sin and are ignorant of our own failures. There is no pain free life...There is forgiveness. Humble yourself the good book says...and He will life you up. Remember regret in light of humility...in that is redemption, the lifting up.

(when I say that God regretted making man which was right before the flood...I am not at all saying that God sinned..or failed...only that the feeling of regret is not in and of itself sinful)