Even the most terrible thing with the most terrible outcome has already been turned to the good.
I do not know if it is my age. Or maybe it is that time of year. Or maybe it is as a result of all the things around me and all the things I see and hear. But I sometimes experience a deep sense of regret.
Now – to clarify – I have a very blessed life. I have money in the bank, a roof over my head, a family who I love and who love me. Friends, connections and influence in the world. I have a husband and children and work and health. I have neither poverty or ill health or poor spiritual direction counting against me. And yet – even in a life as blessed as all of this, I experience the strain of suffering (sometimes) and I am worn down by the very tiny splinter of my Cross and it causes me to reflect on my decisions and experience terrible regret in my life.
And I have been thinking about this experience of regret today. You see, today I have come to realise that regret is really a terrible sin.
You see, if I can experience regret it automatically means that I am proud and not humble. And here is why… If I can regret my life-direction or choices that I made along the way that caused me to land in a certain situation now, then I am working on the assumption that I am in some way in control of those directions that my life took. And that is simply not true.
While it is true that I have free will and God gives me the power to make decisions and choices in my life, God does not become any less powerful just because He allows me to also have some power. And that means that if I had true faith I would have the humility to accept that everything that happens in this world only happens because God Himself allows it to happen.
When I make a choice that is not a good one, and there are consequences, those consequences exist because they are the BEST POSSIBLE outcome I could have out of that choice. Those consequences are the evidence that God is giving me the best thing that I most need in order to achieve Eternal Salvation.
And when I stop to consider it from that perspective, I have no reason for regrets. After all, anything that happens in my life and the lives of those around me is turned to the good. Even the most terrible thing with the most terrible outcome has already been turned to the good.
This means that the best possible situation has already resulted, and I really have no cause for regret.
And I have been reflecting on that today – humbly – as I consider all the times I have told my Beloved that I had regrets…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.