I think buyer's remorse extends far beyond the price tag of an item we purchase in the store. It extends to all aspects of our lives. There have been many times in my life when I seemed to accept ANYTHING anyone said to me as the truth, even though logically I knew it wasn't. I have accepted lies from Satan and have followed his stinking path even though I knew it was against God's law.
I think one of the biggest things we do that we regret, at least for me, is that I expect that people tell me something they mean it and it is the truth. There is a high price to pay when you lose the trust in someone you trusted or they lose the trust in you that they had.
Some things have happened in my life that I just couldn't, and still can't, believe that I have done to people or people have done to me. Most of them are very childish but yet we hold them up as if they are high prized items (grudges to hold on to). I especially get confused when I have seemingly done things that have hurt people, and I truly don't know what the transgression is, and they don't seem to have the need or courage to talk to me and tell me what's wrong. I can be pretty good at this myself, and this is one thing I consciously try to avoid doing to people. I have figured out if I want people to be honest with me I have to be honest with them. We have to remember with honesty we won't always hear what we want to hear.
Then there are times in life when you tell the truth and other people choose, for whatever reason, not to believe you. The only thing you can do then is stand on the truth you have told because you can't control whether or not people believe you. Sometimes they don't believe you because they simply can't comprehend that someone they care about has said or done the things that you have told them about.
There are also times in life when a line is drawn in the sand, and both sides are so opposite of each other that each party finds it very hard to cross that line because doing so would mean having to accept you were wrong or at least you could have been wrong. I especially find this hard to deal with when my kids are involved because like any mother I will stand on my side of the line with them when I know they are telling the truth or if they have had to make a hard decision because of hurtful things being done or said to them.
Sometimes I think, wow what if we could get our "money" back on these kinds of items like we can when we return something to the store for a refund. The only way I know of doing that is through confessing and asking forgiveness from Jesus Christ. We have to be careful to not have our hearts harden when these things happen, but we also have to learn to protect our hearts when they are hurt. Teaching kids to have remorse and to ask for forgiveness is a job all parents should endeavor. There is no comparison to that remorse and forgiveness when compared to the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. You see grace is not required and should only be given when there is no other way around it.
There are some big things in my life that I have buyer's remorse for, and most of them have happened in the last three years. I wish I could have bought Mel a new heart, a new kidney, new intestines, new liver, new lungs. I wish we could have gone to the hospital and just exchanged them for new ones. I wish I never would have had to say a final goodbye to him. I wish I didn't have to accept God's will that he take Mel home to cure him. I wish I would not have had to make the decision to move when I did. They say you should never make that kind of a decision for at least a year after your spouse has died. I moved to Odessa exactly 10 weeks after Mel had passed away. Somedays I like it here, I like the friends that I have made, I love my neighbors, I love our church, and I love the safety I feel here for my kids. I don't like that I left my friends, my church, my parents and my home and everything that was familiar to me in one fell swoop. I don't like that my kids had to go through that too.
But in life there are no refunds on major decisions made in the hour of grief, on words that are said that can't be unsaid, on actions that can't be undone, fatal diseases that take the ones you love the most, not having the relationships you thought you would have in life, and all kinds of other things.
I can tell you though that sometimes "I want my money back", I want a refund, I want to go back to my old life, my comfortable life with Mel that was not a daily struggle trying to be happy, and to a life where my kids had their daddy.
No comments:
Post a Comment