After two conversations recently with good friends, I'm sitting here wondering about the differences in what our culture teaches us single folks about love and relationships and what we should be looking for. I also was thinking about the concept of regret, and how it happens to tie into all of this.
I'll actually start with regret. My ADD mind was doing its typical, jumbled thoughts and I decided on further reflection to spare the confusion. Regret is a strange thing. We're told so often in so many messages that we shouldn't regret anything. Jonathan Larson, in the musical RENT, wrote that, "There's only us. There's only this. Forget regrets or life is yours to miss. No other hope. No other way. NO DAY BUT TODAY!" And this seems to be the way that so many of us try to live. Re-gret: –verb (used with object)
1. to feel sorrow or remorse for (an act, fault, disappointment, etc.)
I guess in this context, which captures best the standard meaning of this word, I can see why feeling regret wouldn't be as good. Why would anyone want to feel those things? However, I just read a quote (and I cant find it) about how regret is something that we can embrace with age. I know that personally, as I begin to learn to let go of my pride and unwillingness to admit my mistakes, there are certainly things which I regret. Things both that I've done or equally, things that I haven't done. But I find with those that I know or those that I read about, as character solidifies, there is a balance between the recognition that we are where we are because of those experiences that have shaped us, but also a wish that some of those things might never have happened or happened in a different way. But I think at our most honest, there are things that we all regret. And I think that if we don't, we run the risk of being narcissistic sociopaths without any kind of social conscience. I truly don't believe that we should go through life, especially in our relationships, without this conscience which both allows us to look out for others as well as our own hearts.
Even God asks for not only our apology, but our regret. In doing some study on relationships for a different issue, I read this:"Repentance is not simply an apology; in fact, an apology is merely an admission
that one has been caught, a want to be "let off the hook." Confession, not apology,
is required (James 5:16). Confession spells out the offense in full. Repentance is a
well-considered path of measurable change that is demonstrated over time. As
transformation is seen and confirmed, trust is regained."
It would seem to me that this repentance embraces some regret in order to completely turn one's back on a previous behavior. God says it like this:Joel 2:12-14 (The Message)
But there's also this, it's not too late—
God's personal Message!—
"Come back to me and really mean it!
Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!"
Change your life, not just your clothes. Come back to God, your God. And here's
why: God is kind and merciful. He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot, this most
patient God, extravagant in love, always ready to cancel catastrophe. Who knows?
Maybe he'll do it now maybe he'll turn around and show pity. Maybe, when all's said
and done, there'll be blessings full and robust for your God!
Which leads me to this other subject. I know that there are things in relationships, or relationships as a whole that I completely regret. Its true, I learned lessons from them. Its true that they have shaped me. However, if there were a way to learn those lessons or take the advice of those that guided me, I could have avoided heaps of pain to my heart and to the hearts of others. And yet, we continue to buy into two types of lies I think. First, I think there is the lie that "nice" people can only be friends. I just don't understand that one. I know that I've been guilty of putting people in the friend category because they were nice. I read a book that talked about finding people of quality and character who we could love because of those things, and then not shutting our hearts to them, but letting love grow through friendship, if its to be. And my friend and I were talking the other week and she said that they was realizing that loving people was hard and that they had to relearn how to be attracted to the right kind of people, and not the one's that were hip/cool/trendy/hot/"bad"/"dangerous", and instead learn to be attracted one's that they wouldn't have to earn their love or prove it or be degraded by. And it just makes me wonder, what if…. What if this change that God demands of us as we learn to love him and to love ourselves is really a heart change, even in the area of relationships? What if we repent and seek God's mercy in who and what we've looked for prior to this in relationships. What if we really decided that our friends were worth investing and not closing the romantic door on because they were our friends? What if we looked at these people that have been there and earned our trust and this place in our lives and prayerfully considered asking God to grow feelings within us if that was his will? What if we stopped looking for this Mysterious Other Person out there in the big world and instead looked at those friends right in front of us? Could we possibly realize that what we crave so much in that Mysterious Other might instead be a close friend? Could that be a way to eliminate a lot of the regret that we have – that I have – for those moments I've chased and pursued a woman because of her ability to flirt or her looks or kiss?
Maybe its just something to think about. Maybe its just what's on my heart today.
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