Regret

There are very few things in life that I regret.  I have always, even before coming to Christ, been the type of person who felt like every moment in my life led to this one, and this one is good, so why regret?

There are some totally awful things I wish never happened, but even those I can accept as turning points-things that changed my life into what it is now...

But it occurs to me after some study, that I have been deceived.  I have always prided myself on being a pretty smart cookie.  (Yes, pride comes before the fall...I'll get there)  I feel like I have a pretty high level of discernment and can pretty well smell BS when it's cooking.  I very much have that "sixth sense" and the proverbial "gut feeling." 

That's not to say I can't be fooled.  My own perceptions typically lead me to believe people think things that never crossed their minds.  Don't we all do that to a certain degree?  "Did you SEE the way she looked at me?  She hates me.  She has never liked me."  When, in reality, she just had a gas bubble and was hoping it wouldn't make a loud noise.

I'm rambling because I'm tired and it's been a long week...

Suffice it to say I let the devil or the world or whoever you'd like to blame trick me.  He tricked me into believing that the number of children I have (or was supposed to have) was a monstrous number and that I would be stupid to want more.  I was lied to and told that I would be at my max capacity for love at this number...maybe my max capacity for fulfillment, happiness, etc.

This week I was 4 days late for my period.  That is the 2nd time that has happened this year (the first was in January).  Both times I tortured myself, wavering between hope and berating myself for being stupid.  I skate a thin line between praying like crazy that I might be redeemed and not wanting to speak to God at all, for fear He's punishing me for last week's laziness.

Let me take a step back and say that is NOT how God works...just how my mind can make things. 

But after I started I sat down with God and I said, "I feel like I'm being punished."
And He said, "I'm not punishing you...you made a choice."
And I thought about all the ways God could over-ride my choice...vasecotmies fail all the time.
And He said, "are you unhappy with your choice?"

And you know what?  I am.  I regret.  And I feel like that stinking unicorn in The Last Unicorn at the end, after she's been human and she feels regret and longing.  And I feel like a melodramatic crazy who no one wants to hear talk anymore.  And I bottle it up inside and even from God, but the minute that I opened up and told Him that I regret, He opened up some answers to me.  This morning I read Galatians 4 and Isaiah 21.  What I love about reading in 2 separate places is that when He is talking to me, it hits me in the face like a 2x4, which is what I need at 6:30am.  If you read the same thing in 2 totally different locations, you can pretty much guess it means something.  Even a non-believer takes notice of something like that.

Both passages talked about satan lying and deceiving people and how God has pains like a woman in labor for His children when they are lied to and stolen from.

Man!! 

And so here I am...still regretting and not knowing what our future holds, (except amazingness!  I know that's in there) but so glad for a God who speaks to me right where I'm at.  Even if it blows to have to admit I've been tricked.