New Reminders: Regrets
by Ardith Hoff
We have all said things we wish we hadn’t. Sometimes it is due to thoughtlessness, or we were teasing, and other times we may have been angry and lashed out. For whatever reason, we wish we could retract hurtful words. The old stick and stones…saying doesn’t hold true, words can hurt someone, whether said purposefully or inadvertently. If we have a chance to tell the person that we’re sorry to have been hurtful and the person we have offended accepts our apology, we might feel a little better, but too often, the damage has been done, and it is too late.
During one of his iHeartPodcast episodes in February 2024, Paul McCartney discussed the lyrics of his famed 1965 ballad “Yesterday.” It’s been sung and covered countless times with the assumption these lyrics are about a failed romance (“I said something wrong, Now I long for yesterday”) but it’s about his mom. She died in 1956 from an embolism at the age of 47 when McCartney was 14. She had a strong Irish accent and he’d previously mocked her about making “ask” sound like “arsk,” which embarrassed her. The former Beatle said, “I remember later thinking ‘I wish I’d never said that.’ He explained how “he wishes he had an eraser that he could rub that Yesterday moment away.” We all wish we had that kind of eraser. BillBoard.com, 2/64/24
The question is: what can we do to repair things? The truth is that in some cases, there is nothing we can do. In those cases, we can’t change what has been said, but we can ask God for forgiveness, and we can be more careful to think before we speak and only speak with love in our hearts, with God’s help. Feeling remorseful for what we have said or done can eat away at us. That is why it is so important to ask the person we have harmed to forgive us and if that is not possible to ask God for forgiveness and to help us do better.
God’s love not only forgives but also renews. It offers us a chance to embrace a new identity, free from the shackles of past mistakes. The grace that comes when God’s love allows us to be unashamed of who we are because He creates a new identity in us when we confess our sins and show true remorse for what we have said or done. That’s the greatest gift to one haunted by regrets. Even if we can’t erase our mistakes, God can! “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.” Acts 3:19