I came upon an interesting quote yesterday “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.”

Those words stopped me in my tracks.  Thinking back to my regrets in life, those “if only I had” moments, I realized that I was looking at them through the lens of what I have learned since then.  Would I have made some different choices or handled relationships differently, oh yes.  But at that time, I didn’t have the experience of a lifetime.  Perhaps it should be gratifying to know that we have learned “a thing or two” in our years on this planet.  But to “forgive,” ah there’s the rub.  The guilt trip that clings to those choices and relationships is harder to shake.  How is it that we can accept God’s forgiveness freely without really forgiving ourselves?

We tend to look back at what we did or didn’t do through the lens of what we now know.  Much of the understanding and empathy that is ours today is something that we have learned.  Some learned early, some of us later, but we weren’t born with it. 

Today is ours to live.  If we are blessed, tomorrow as well.  It’s our time to use our lifetime of growth, to choose the road our Lord would have us take, to meet those in our path with the love and empathy that our Lord himself would offer.  Will we be perfect?  Not hardly.  But forgiving ourselves for not knowing what we didn’t know before we learned it, may free us to move on.

In the grace and unconditional love of God, we move forward.

Judy