Regrets

Regrets...we all live with them, don't we?  They don't feel good, do they?  Regrets come when we have done something that we shouldn't have or have not done something that we should have.  Regrets can cause us to sink into deep pits of despair and depression.  However, they can also spur us onto action and purpose.  It does not matter what the regret is, your response to it will determine whether you sink into hopelessness or rise up to restoration.

Maybe you are reading this and you are living with regrets stemming from a series of bad decisions.  Maybe you have left your family and your decisions have not turned out like you imagined it.  Maybe your marriage has crumbled to some sort of substance abuse.  Regardless of what your regrets are or where they have come from, you don't have to live a life where your regrets rule you.

Or maybe you are reading this and you are regretting decisions where you were supposed to stand for right and you didn't.  Maybe you decided that a divorced life would be acceptable and now wish it could be undone.  Maybe you remember a time long ago when life was right, your marriage was sweet, and you want to rewind time to way back when.  You don't have to live your life wishing that things were different.

When I look back at what I (Josh) have done, I could easily find myself in a very dark place.  If I was judging myself I would find myself lacking in so many things; regretting the majority of my life and decisions from a very young age.

When I (Serena) look back, I regret not praying more for my husband and learning what it meant to stand for your husband LONG before he makes a downward spiral. Marriages not TRUELY covered in prayer are east targets.  If I spend enough time dwelling on the past, I wish I could take back time and find the moment where our lives starting dipping lower and do something...ANYTHING...to make the last few chapters of our lives not happen.

But, we don't live in the past.  We can't!  There is too much that God has placed in our hands and directed us to for us to live in the past with regrets swallowing us.  There are times when we are talking about things when sometimes one of us has to say, "Enough."  Usually those are the times when our regrets start to rise up into an ungodly size and we begin to feel a sense of defeat.

We learned, during our restoration, that we cannot linger in the past.  We had to move on into where God was leading us; forgiveness, healing, forgiveness, wholeness, forgiveness, love, forgiveness, joy, and a little more forgiveness.  It is simple in thought and theory but not so simple to live out.

Whatever the regret you have to move on from it.  Be it something done or not done, you have to move on.  What has been done cannot be undone but the lingering effects from them can be turned into something good.  You may be asking, "What good can come from this?"  That is up to a combination of God and your response to His leading.

Once you have regrets, you have a choice...will you continue to live in such a way that it breeds more regrets?  Or will you learn to make some hard decisions that will cause you to say, "It doesn't matter how hard this may be I WILL not continue to have regrets!"

I don't know about you, but for us, we don't have time for regrets.  God has too much for us to do...for you to do...to let regrets cripple us.

Josh and Serena

No matter how big or how small....we all have SOME kind of regrets.