Comfort foods for the soul (15): Get that weight off

Ever felt like you want to take back something you have said or done that left scars?

Ever felt the feeling of regret was like a heavy weight on your chest that only a long sigh could relieve?

I did.

In familial settings.

In work.

In church.

The older I get the more previously never classified as such emerge to place a weight on my chest.

Not sure it was the reward of aging, or curse.

Or the curious way time works as a rear view mirror.

There will be time to talk about them later but now let me recall two from the church setting.

First, a young man, probably 18 or 19 years old came to me and said he wanted to enlist and fight.

He wanted to get a baptism before he set off.

I said all the right things but I didn’t agree on the spot.

I wanted him to go through a short few sessions with me, to consider it carefully and then decide.

That was what I thought the right thing to do.

Shouldn’t baptism be an expression of well thought out life time commitment, rather than an insurance policy?

But then, I never saw the young man again.

The second incident involved a couple who just found out the husband was having an affair.

I went to listen and talk to them fully intent on finding ways for them to deal with the situation.

I forgot what I said and do now but it must not have been empathetic or comforting.

Knowing me, probably more on what and who was wrong.

The wife was supportive and soon they moved to another church.

We never met again.

Rightly or wrongly, now being older, I feel there must have been something else I could have done, in both incidents.

Something that could have kept the young man and the couple to continue engaged with me, at the critical point of their lives.

But that is no longer possible.

I wasn’t there when most needed.

And that makes it such a weighty load every time it came up in my thoughts.

That’s when I will go to read Psalm 103.

“. . . he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” (Psalm 103:10, New International Version)

I thought, if God is so kind and long-suffering, surely I can let God lift the weight off my chest.

He has a gentler way dealing with inadequate humans.

Yes, I can breathe easier.