forgiveness’ sake

A chance (?) conversation last week re-opened some old wounds, scars which I thought had long since healed.

Not completely.

The conversation was actually encouraging and its initiator is not to blame—but I spent most of Thursday thinking back over the last decade and the choices I’ve made.

And the time I wasted. No one’s ever accused me of raging optimism, so not surprisingly I focused on the negative—the relationships I stayed in too long, the one I wish had worked out, the things I might have changed. The huge amount of physical and emotional energy I invested into my work and the microscopic difference it made. The things I wish I had said, hadn’t said, had said another way.


It was a great day.


On Friday, during my drive to the airport, by chance (?) one of my favorite songs shuffled up on my iPod—“The Heart of the Matter” by Don Henley.


“I’ve been trying to get down

to the heart of the matter

But my will gets weak

And my thoughts seem to scatter

But I think it’s about forgiveness

Forgiveness

Even if you don’t love me anymore.”


The old pop hit talks about letting go of old pain, old loves, the people in your life “who’ve come and gone.” It’s about forgiving them so the anger against them doesn’t ruin you.

I’ve listened to this song at least 200 times, but for the first time I realized I don’t need to forgive that (handsome, arrogant) boyfriend. I don’t need to forgive the various people at that (bureaucratic, dysfunctional) workplace.


I need to forgive myself.


The truth is, I did the best I could. If I knew then what I know now, things would look very different, but I couldn’t know those things at age 25. Unfortunately, in life we usually learn the lessons after we need them.

And then on Saturday, by chance (?) I remembered Isaiah 43: “Look, I am doing a new thing! Don’t you see it?”

And it clicked.

For good or for bad, my twenties are over. (And then some.) I can’t change them, but God’s not living there and he doesn’t want me to, either. In the words of Mason Cooley, regret for wasted time is just more wasted time. I can’t change the past but I can stop beating myself up for how I handled it—and focus on what God is doing now.