It’s been a while since I blogged.
Not because I don’t have things to say, but because I don’t know why anyone would listen. I’m twenty-one, just about to graduate college, newly married -- new to pretty much everything. I mean, I recently started paying bills on my own rather than just giving the money to my friend so she could do it. I’m basically a kid. And a pretty stupid one at that. I remember making some cheesy, bad post a couple of years ago about regrets -- something about unexplored dreams becoming regretted nightmares. Gramma got ahold of me, saying that I am young; I really don’t have that much to regret right now. But, I mean, I do. I have a lot of things I regret. And if I wasn’t concerned about the privacy of other people, maybe I would share them all with you. I mean, why not? I don’t see the point of hiding regrets. After all, my regrets have taught me more than any four-year program ever could. Anyone who has really experienced and processed regret probably knows what I am talking about. It’s that moment when you look in someone’s eyes, tear-ridden or enraged, and wonder, “What have I done?” You can’t ever go back. You can’t make things right. You can’t change what you did. You just smashed a hundred rotten eggs, and, the worst part is, It can stink for years. “A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed.” (Prov 15:13) Discipline teaches, though, and that stink can teach just as well as any spanking. Maybe better. There you are, covered in rotten eggs, wondering what you’re ever going to do, how you’re going to keep moving forward, and then here bloggers come, springing in with a thousand blogs about a thousand things. Wanting to tell you how to cook, How to clean, How to take care of yourself, Your children, Your relationships, Your husband, And pretty much anything else you’d ever want to know. We put our noses in the air, deciding that, for some reason, we without certificates are the experts on… well, whatever we say we are. And you believe us. I mean, what do you have to lose at this point? Might be entertaining, informative, helpful even. Might as well listen. Anything to cover up the stink. Well, I’m not an expert on much of anything. Heartbreak. Regret. Forgiveness. And, of course, writing (still working on that expertise, but that’s the dream anyway). So I’m not even going to pretend. And I wouldn’t blame you for leaving and moving on. But, if I’m honest, I’d ask you to please stay. Not because I have the newest secret about how to lose weight, make a perfect souffle, or a list of the hottest memes of the last week. But because I have felt regret and -- more importantly -- Am learning how to move past it. Regret is not just an obstacle in the street, something to just step around. And, even though I said this earlier, it isn’t even as easy as rotten eggs. Rotten eggs just wash off. Regret doesn’t. So many Christians have told me that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was covering enough for me, that I don’t need to and shouldn’t feel regret any more because that sin is gone. Sure, yeah, easy to say. But the tendrils are still there. It’s more like getting caught in a fishing net underwater. Stay there long enough, and you’ll drown. Fight it too hard, deny its existence, just keep swimming -- and you’ll still drown. The way that I’ve had to survive is by stopping my struggle, my fearful wriggling, and watch God as he teaches me how to get out, one rope at a time. Grab this one. See how it is tangled? Unwrap it. Now your hand is free. Onto the next. And once you’re untangled from the initial situation, I know it sounds silly, but it is so hard to not just jump right back in. Because that is the thing with regret. You don’t feel relieved when you escape. You feel like you cheated. You deserve to die, to suffer, but you didn’t. It’s even worse when the regret comes from a manipulative situation where you used or hurt someone to your own advantage. Then you get out, just like that? It’s not fair! I can’t tell you how many tears I’ve cried because of how unfair it is. I should be the one who dies because of how I’ve hurt someone, but, in the end, I escape with minor bruises while the other person has ghosts now that will haunt them for years. It’s like texting while driving, getting into a wreck, and killing the other driver, but, for whatever reason, you survive. It’s not fair… It’s just not fair. You can’t ever go back. You can’t make things right. You can’t change what you did. Sure, you may have escaped the initial fishing net, but walking away from it is hard. Sometimes you just want to give up -- you deserve it. That’s where I am. I am blogging. Not because I have all this knowledge, but because I’m stupid. I’m stupid. I’ve made bad decisions. I’ve cut other people and myself. But I’m learning how to step out of regret, how to allow God to take care of all that and not throw myself back into that fishing net. “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 3:13, 14) It’s been almost a year since my last big mistake. And I still think about it, every day. So maybe I’m not doing a good job at this, “forgetting what lies behind” stuff, but maybe that’s the beauty of me as a blogger. I’m not going to pretend my heart is perfect and everything is amazing. Because I am not. And it isn’t. I never have been perfect. Shocker, I know. So, read me, Don’t read me. I’m not going to be so haughty as to think that I have all the answers (or any for that matter) or that I am all that interesting. But I am honest. Is the claim of being worth listening to more presumptuous than the claim of being honest? I’m not sure. Guess you have to figure that one out on your own. Either way, I am straining forward to what lies ahead. You coming?
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October 2019
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