Editor's note: This article is an excerpt from "What Women Fear" by author Angie Smith. Download chapter one for free. See the Related Content sidebar to download.
I long to be a woman who walks in the moment God has given me, with full confidence in what's to come.
"What if I had listened to my instinct that the baby's movement had slowed down? Would she be here now?"
"What if I had stayed with my husband? Would my life be better?"
"What if I hadn't said those words? Would they have accepted me?"
"What if I had seen the signs that he wasn't doing well? Could I have prevented it?"
"What if I had stuck with graduate school? Would I have a better job?"
"What if I had been stronger in my convictions? Would I be stuck here now?"
I would hasten to say that very few days go by without each of us having a conversation with ourselves about "what might have been." It could be something as insignificant as wishing we had chosen a healthier breakfast, but the fact of the matter is we spend a huge portion of our lives looking back. This thinking can weigh us down with guilt, shame, regret, and fear.
I went to church with a dear woman who had lost a baby at 39 weeks gestation. She found me in the foyer after our church service, and through teary eyes, she told me that her son had died of a cord accident. It had been three years since the incident, but as she shared with me, she recalled the day before his death when she felt like his movement was different. Having already had two other children, she wasn't overly concerned about it and convinced herself he was just calm. By the next morning she was panicked. She went into the hospital, where she was told that her son was gone. She suffered through a full labor and delivery, only to hold her beautiful stillborn son a few hours later. When she returned home, she sat in his nursery and wept while she wondered "what if?"
Even as she shared this with me, she asked the question again. It had haunted her for all these years, and had shaken her faith to the core. She was desperate to go back to the moment she first felt the concern and do it all differently. I'm sure her mind played every potential scenario in the coming months as she dealt with the loss. Her marriage and her parenting had fallen by the wayside as she had spiraled into the abyss of possibilities. With each passing Christmas and anniversary came the nagging voice, taunting her to imagine how it all would have been different if she had gone in one day sooner.
It is so easy to fear we have ruined something beautiful.
So easy for us to believe that we held the keys to what was supposed to be and now we are destined to live among the ashes that remain. And more often than we care to admit, we step back into a situation where we think we can redeem the past, only to find that we have no more peace than we did before. We are powerless in changing it, but paralyzed by the sense that we have tainted the great canvas of our lives.
Years ago I knew a girl who was married with three children. From the outside you would have thought she had it made, but underneath it all she wondered if she had chosen the right man. Before she had met her husband, someone else had broken her heart and she hadn't ever really gotten over it. She ended up having an affair and leaving her husband because she longed to know what she might have missed.
She was so busy looking backwards that she bumped full- force into a future that was anything but what she wanted.
There is a difference in learning from past mistakes and ruminating over the million-and-one ways we might have done it better. I speak from experience when I tell you that nothing good can be gained from such thinking.
Will you sit with me for just a moment and think about a situation in your life you wish you had handled differently? Several come to mind for me even as I am writing, and I am tempted to fret over my decisions. I can feel a sense of fear rising up in me, a sense of panic that I have done more damage than can be repaired.
I feel it in my bones, this curiosity about what might have been. If I allow myself to drift back there, I can spend many sleepless nights caught in a web of doubt. I believe that Satan preys on these moments, taunting us with our own self-doubt, rejoicing as we replay things over and over, desperate for a different outcome. Scripture gives us powerful words about these thoughts, and I encourage you to find strength in them when you begin to wonder.
"We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every though captive to obey Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).
We can't go back to the waiting room, to the friend's house, to the moment where the door slammed behind us. What we can do is go to the throne of grace with our regret and let Jesus redeem it as only He can. Take it captive before it takes you. As soon as the thought comes, make a conscious decision to set it at the foot of the cross, and make a commitment that you will leave it there. Will you always do it perfectly? Probably not. But you will develop the strength that comes from leaving the weight with Someone who is equipped to carry it. You weren't made to walk through life with the stack of missed opportunities pressing you into the ground. Unless it is a thought that will spur you on to good action in the future, it isn't worth allowing back in. Pray as you release this to God, asking Him to help you submit to His authority and leadership as you move away from a life consumed with regret. In order to be released from the burden of sin in your past, make a point of repenting of it to the Lord as specifically as you are able.
I am someone who lives in a constant state of worry about the future, and it's something I have to commit to the Lord many times a day. I fear that He has somehow forgotten me and that I'm on my own. I take matters into my own hands but He reminds me that He hasn't gone anywhere. There is always a moment in time when I can feel His gentle voice reassuring me, but it's usually hindsight that brings relief instead of trust in the moment. I long to be a woman who walks in the moment God has given me, with full confidence in what's to come. I know it isn't always going to look the way I want it to, but I long to internalize the fact that He is never going to forsake me or take His hands off me.