REGRET

This time of year was once my very favorite...the colors, the cooler weather, pumpkins and all the beauty that comes with autumn.  I loved it and still do to a point.    However, it is now also the time of year that my husband’s once strong body began to give way to the wretched cancer that had engulfed every moment of our lives for the past two years.  When the beautiful season of autumn should bring excitement for the expectation of Thanksgiving and Christmas, it now leaves my heart in fear of the approaching “anniversary” and what might wash over me from that great loss we have endured.  And in the midst of this survival mode and sadness, I long for what was good.  And I regret....

 

Regret is a terrible thing to endure and it needles into spaces of your mind that are worn out from grief.  I should have, I could have and why didn’t I?  I’m not talking about the skinny girl “I ate a doughnut and now I’m puffy” regret, (that’s not a regret for us healthier girls) or the “Why didn’t I pick the black Mercedes instead of the blue one” (not a particular worry for me either).  I’m talking about the life regrets...the regrets that tell you that you could have made a difference had you chosen well.

I don’t have too many from my life with Dan. He and I lived our lives with short accounts, but the little ones plague me...I should have read Scripture to him when he could no longer hold his Bible, or stayed more in his “world” at the end instead of trying to make people feel comfortable, or just laying next to him a little longer and listening to every precious heart beat...if only. 

But regret is useless.  It is simply another way to allow Satan to turn our focus onto our pitiful selves and away from the Lord who knows how human we are and that sometimes we do all that we know to do, and despite our human-ness still chooses to give us grace to learn and move on. I know that in my head but it’s difficult to accept.

That being said, I would like to reach the end of my life with no regret....better looking, but with no regret.  And from what I can figure, we do that by living every day as if it were our last, not just living but living intentionally, living for a future we will have after we draw our last breath, living to hear the words, “well done” from the Lord.  I want to hear that.  Who wouldn’t? 

So...... just in case this is my last day, custard filled or glazed?

Joy Dilts

II Timothy 4: 7 & 8: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.