In Blessings from Pain, I told about my fall which resulted in a broken patella and subsequent surgery ten days later. As the days dragged on until surgery, I developed a list of "if onlys":

• If only I hadn't taken that shortcut across the street through that dirt strip and had been watching where I was walking, I wouldn't have fallen.
• If only I had called 911 as soon as I fell, I would have been taken care of right away.
• If only, when I got home, I had gone straight to an emergency room that was part of a hospital, instead of the smaller one around the corner from my house, I might have been admitted for surgery sooner.

2 Corinthians 7:10 – For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There's no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death. (NLT)

I'm sure that I'm not alone in this mode of "if only" thinking. We look back on our lives and start obsessing over situations in which our actions or reactions were not as Christlike or as wise as they should have been. We develop lists like mine and dwell on them, often obsessively. That becomes sin as we endlessly rehearse our failures with no hope of, or intent to, change as we wallow in our guilt and frustrate everyone around us. We leave God out of the picture and deny the miracle of forgiveness; we want to pay for our own sin instead. We need to remember that on the cross, Jesus said, "It is finished." (John 19:30)

Each of my "if onlys" has a practical response. I need to accept that I did what I thought was best at the time and leave it at that:

• I am prone to clumsiness. I can't obsess over that; I just need to be more aware of where I walk.
• When I fell, I was in California, USA, away from home, and responsible for my sister's adult disabled daughters, and I felt that I needed to get home to them first.
• It's snowbird season in Arizona, USA, and doctors' schedules are full.

Acts 3:19 – Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. (NIV)

Do you have an "if only" list about something in your past? Let that sorrow and regret lead to repentance: take steps to prevent that type of action or event from happening again. Use it to grow in your walk with Christ and experience those "times of refreshing". Remember: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV)

Prayer: Father, we are so prone to wallow in our guilt instead of repenting and turning to You. Help us to leave our regrets in the past, to accept Your forgiveness, and to act like the new creations that we are. Amen.