Have you ever sat and thought “if I could go back in time and change ONE thing in my life, what would it be?”… I would highly suspect that the majority of us would answer yes to this. We think back on our lives and the mistakes we’ve made. The injustices against us begin to flash before our eyes, one right after another. Sometimes to the overwhelming point where we can’t stop the thoughts or the images of all of our many failures. Our bruises and scars are the only things left behind. This unfortunately leads to feelings of regret, pity, bitterness, hate, and unworthiness to name only a few. We then put a huge red failure stamp right on our foreheads that we believe the world can see since it’s literally flashing off and on in our minds which makes matters even worse. Depression sets in. We become isolated. We feel defeated. We tell ourselves that no one will love us anyway, I mean we can’t even love ourselves!!
Does that sound familiar? I know it does for me. We could be here for days upon days counting and recalling every last wrong decision, sin or injustice I’ve ever made or experienced over the past 38 years and 9 months of my life. Going back to the original question of “changing one thing”, I’ve personally thought this over many many times trying to rationalize the possibilities of outcomes that could have occurred if just “one thing” would have been different. Here are a few of those possibilities that came up during my self-loathing, “oh pitiful me”, moments…
- If there was no alcoholism, drug addiction, or physical abuse; I would not have been robbed of my mother, her future and of my childhood.
- If I was born a little later in my mom’s life and not at 17, I could have had parents who were ready to choose me, love me, and teach me.
- If only my 17 year old mother had chosen the abortion rather than keeping me, I would not have even had to be here to experience such trauma.
- If maybe the foster parents who only pretended to care, chose to love, nurture and teach me rather than just get a paycheck, maybe I’d love others more easily.
- If I would not have been sexually molested as a child by someone whom I trusted and thought was safe, I would have been spared years upon years of self-destruction, self-esteem issues, and emotional instability.
- If I would have had parents to teach and protect me, I would have been safe from all of the “bad things” and would have known how to respect myself rather than feasting on alcohol and promiscuity.
- If I would have focused on my education, rather than toxic relationships and selfish desires out of high school, I would not have thrown away a full ride academic college scholarship or had to run away from everything I knew to get away from the drugs, alcohol and physical abuse.
- If I would have made better financial decisions, I would not have had so much debt.
- If I would not have gotten pregnant out of wedlock, would I have even gotten married?
- If I would have given up following the birth of my first son while battling severe postpartum depression, I could have ended the pain and trauma that would continue to build as time went on.
- If I would have been a “better wife”, would my marriage not have ended in disaster?
The list truly does goes on, and on, and on, and on… But you know what? Thinking back trying to change something that happened in our past, as an attempt to help us justify or even fix our current situation, is a LOST BATTLE!! We cannot change the past, and even if we could, there’s always going to be something else that happens to us, or another bad decision made on our behalf that will affect our lives, our future, and even those around us. We are human, and it’s in our nature to sin; we cannot change that. What we can do though, is choose God first and seek His guidance and peace during all of these storms that we are sure to see while we live out our earthly lives.
Thinking back through decades of darkness in my life, the one thing though that has always been consistently absent was a REAL RELATIONSHIP with God. Did I grow up in church? Yes, front pew at a small Baptist church in rural Arkansas. I went to Sunday school, church camps, all the places. I continued to be present on Sunday mornings as I grew up, because well, it’s what you’re supposed to do right? We are taught to accept Jesus as our Savior, live by the 10 commandments, and tell the world how He’s blessed us with everything we have? That’s all it takes right?..
But, oh bless my poor ignorant soul, did I have it all wrong… Yes, I knew who God was. I knew who Jesus was. I knew Daniel, Joseph, Mary, Noah, Abraham, Adam and Eve. I knew all the people and all their inspirational bible stories. I sang the hymns. I memorized and recited the bible verses. I was even baptized in my youth. I would even go as far as saying that most of my life I have survived off of a small mustard seed of faith that there “has to be something better”. But, this was a selfish faith. A faith in God fixing my problems. A faith that I had convinced myself of being true, that “I deserved more”… or “I deserved better”. The real truth? I never chose to know God. And in all honesty, I never even knew that I should want to. It’s kind of like our Facebook friends lists and general activities nowadays… yeah we may know some people by name and we keep up with each other’s superficial and questionably fake lives through the small lens of our daily newsfeeds and brief conversations, but that doesn’t mean that we have a real relationship with them. That we seek and confide in them, trust, or love them. And although I cannot go back in time to make this one thing different in my life, nor would it have even made the circumstances or outcomes in my life any different; I can and have chosen to do it now. And that is only one of the most beautiful things about my story and this blog, that it is never too late to return to Him (Joel 2:12-14).
If you or someone you know is on this same journey. If you have lost all hope in life, or in yourself. My prayer is that this blog helps you just as much as my journey has helped me to start find peace in the chaos and maybe even learn how to love again. As a new blogger, I would love your feedback and to connect with you if you are lead to do so. So please comment, share, and follow.
