No More Regrets

Two weeks ago God showed me that I have been hating myself for at least seven years. I hated a lot of parts of my life when I was going through them, but then God showed me that my self-loathing wasn’t just in the past, it was still happening. Not that I still hate every part of myself. It’s a rare night now that I give into the despair and speak the word worthless over and over and over again. But I still hate myself. To be specific, my past self.

After a lot of people give their testimonies they say, “But you know if I could do it all over again I would, mistakes and all.” In my mind I always secretly sneered at those words. How could they not regret their mistakes? If I could go back I certainly would not make those same mistakes. I wouldn’t throw myself into those relationships that burned me. I wouldn’t ignore and exile the people who hurt me in an attempt to hurt them back. I wouldn’t keep my depression to myself. I would right my wrongs. And I thought that was ok.

However, God recently told me that regrets are not ok. Regrets can masquerade as good intentions and apologies. You can say you don’t regret something, but if you still wish you could go back and change it, it’s secretly a regret. And God is not in the business of regrets.

I didn’t know it, but those regrets were feeding my addiction to self-loathing and eating me from the inside out. Those regrets meant that I still hated myself. Those regrets meant that I did not like the man God had made me. If I would go back and change my experiences, both good and bad, it would mean changing the person I am today. Changing the man of God He has made me to be. And God has shown me that He did not make any mistakes in creating me at birth or creating the me who is sitting here typing. I am who he wants me to be.

I realized this one night as I was talking to a girl on my team who hides her regrets by pretending she’s always happy. She likes to mask her pain by having fun and spending time with fun people. Because if she doesn’t mask the pain, she looks back on her past, and hates who she is. I prayed over her that night about how God made her who she is and she doesn’t have to regret her past because He was in it, just as He is in her now. And God told me that those words were for me too. I wrote a poem about the experience, which I will not share with you. If you have any regrets, I pray that you can give them to God. You don’t have to carry them any longer.

No Regrets

We sit in the dark, just as we have so many times before. The night invites us to think and feel. No moon shines tonight and the black sky calls us to fill the endless void with words. Alone, we fill it with refried regret and songs of sadness. But tonight we are not alone. Me, addicted to despair, in love with hating myself, longing for the kiss of death. Her, addicted to band aids with smiley faces on them, she has covered her eyes with them, afraid to see, knowing she’ll hate what she sees. But we are not alone together. Demons surround us. Slavering with hunger, drooling at the prospect of two more meals. They creep up behind us, their red eyes tinting the night sanguine. They whisper into our ears. To me, “Come back to us, you know you like it. You can’t leave us. You’ll never escape.” To her, “Ignore it, don’t look. It’s too dirty. Thinking about it won’t help. You’re too filthy.” They flick out their claws, ready to tear us apart at the first signs of weakness. But we are not alone, together, with the demons. There is a third party in attendance. His hands cover our ears. His arms hold our shivering bodies. And he speaks, “I made you. I love you. I was there in your past. I made you who you are. I love the person you are, and I have already traded the world for you. So no more hate/ No more fear of the past. No more regrets.” At his words the demons scream and vanish. The cloudy sky clears, and He holds us as we cry. Now the words we speak into the void will change. “I am not afraid of the past. I am loved. I am redeemed. I have no more regrets.” The redeemer has bought us and paid in full. His mercies are new each day. I have no more regrets.