Regrets, Part 2

Yesterday was a first Thursday of the month which means I get to be a mentor mom at Mop's. I love Mop's and wish I had known about it when my girls were pre-school age. Being as my girls are five years apart I could have been there forever! As it is I love being with the young moms now and learning from them. They are supposed to be learning from me but I guarantee that I am the one doing the learning. I have been thinking about regrets this week and had determined not to waste any more time on past mistakes, but, there I was at Mop's listening to young mom's who are making decisions that I wish I had made years ago. I love their confidence and enthusiasm for life and love to hear about what they do that gives them all of their energy. Of course being young helps but I discovered several things while listening at my table this week. They are physically fit. I am coming to see how tied together physical and spiritual fitness are. These ladies at my table run, some of them marathons. They play tennis, they walk and they chase after toddlers. I wish I had done some of that when I was younger but in keeping with my determination to not dwell in the past I just came home from work that day and went walking for a mile. ( I am out of shape so a mile is pretty good for me) They make time for friends and help each other. Some of the ladies at my table watch the children of the others so that they can work or get to appointments. I can tell they talk to each other and make time for one another. When I was younger I did not have a group of young mom's for a support system and I am so glad they do and that they appreciate it. I slipped a little and felt that deep regret of not forming those solid friendships when I was a young mom. It would have helped me be a better person and a better mom. I felt the weight come upon me again and had to pray this time to get rid of it. I could not exercise this one away! It seems that when God is dealing with me in an area of life, like wanting to live in the present and not in the past, he gives me opportunity to make a choice. Like yesterday, He allowed me to make the choice to dwell on past regrets or to move on and determine to make different choices now. I did feel that regret and was kind of in a funk all day but then I remembered what the lesson is about. God cannot teach me to live in the present without giving me the choice. He had to allow me to be in the position of taking hold of those regrets in order to let me choose not to. It is like deciding to give up chocolate. It would be easy if all the chocolate on earth would just disappear, but no, instead we have to actually decide not to eat it. I cannot grab hold of the joy God desires me to have in this present life if I live in my past decisions. That is why Paul made a conscious effort to put his past behind him. It is how David could be a man after God's own heart after commiting murder and adultery. It is how this "chiefest" of all sinners can walk forward, knowing that all of my sins of the past are banished, never to be thrown at me again.