Letting Go Of Regret

This post is written to link with Five Minute Friday: write for five minutes on a one-word prompt.  The prompt today is “regret.”

For eight years I lived with deep regret.

I’m not sure why this particular sin stuck with me the way it did.  Looking back now, it seems almost trivial- an act of teenage foolishness, not a good thing to have done, but nothing that hurt anyone else or had lasting consequences.

Except in my heart.

The claws of condemnation dug in deep, refusing to loosen their grip.  The voice in my head told me I was a bad person.  I prayed and prayed that God would forgive me, but I never really believed he did.  Just when I thought I had broken free, it would come back to haunt me once again.

I thought maybe this was the punishment- the endless guilt.  I struggled with the fact that no-one knew and worried about what they’d think of me if they found out.

Until one day the challenge came- to write a letter to someone who had been there at the time and confess.

It was the last thing I wanted to do.  I wasn’t sure if they’d be angry about what I was going to tell them, or if they would just think it weird that it had bothered me for eight years.

God and I wrestled over it for a while.

He won.

I wrote the letter.

And something about the response of understanding and grace caused the truth to finally sink in.

God’s forgiveness is real and it is complete.  It is for me and it is for you.

We don’t have to carry our regrets all our days because Jesus has dealt with them.  As he hung on the cross, paying the price of our sins, he declared “It is finished.”

There is no condemnation for those who are in Him.

“You will not stay angry with your people forever, because you delight in showing unfailing love.  Once again you will have compassion on us.  You will trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean!”  (Micah 7:18-19 NLT)