May
19
Regret
Filed Under Daily Devotions
I have thought of this phrase often before and it came back to me today and I felt like writing it out.
There are a few things I regret having done, but not one do I regret having gone through.
Having gone back home this past weekend, I was immersed in my past – both high school and college. I’m not gonna lie to ya…there were some pretty stupid things I did. I don’t regret a lot of things. There are a couple big things I do regret…a couple sad things…things I’ll never get the opportunity to change or do over. Some of them were reactions to things that happened and how I treated people.
However much I may regret having done them or wishing certain things never happened, I do not regret having gone through them. As I have gone through the fire and come out the other side, I have become a stronger person for it. I think I learned a lot about God’s character as I look back on those days and see His handprints throughout my life. I also think it helps me relate to people a lot more, especially when they’re going through something I already went through.
I think too many times we want to surpress the hardships and the heartache. Totally understandable. But when we leave it, we can’t learn from it. We cannot use that to help others. I thank God for the verse Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
Who better to comfort someone whose child died an early age of cancer than a mother who experienced the same thing? Who better to comfort a college athlete who gave into the peer pressure of drinking with her teammates and made mistakes along the way, than someone who made the same mistakes? Who better to comfort someone who has lost their job and struggling to make ends meet, than someone who has been out of work for two years?
Our hardships make us stronger…when we rely on Christ to bring us through the valley. He comforts us so we in turn can comfort others. As hard and as difficult as it may be, don’t hide from the pain…learn from the pain.