Seven Results of Owning One's Regret Redemptively

 I recently read some Yale University lectures from renowned theologian Nicholas Woltersdorff about the subject of "Living with Grief." Woltersdorff's son died young in a tragic mountain climbing accident, and his theological focus has consequently become centered on grief. 

As I read these lectures, I was struck by the parallels between grief and regret. I read his theological reflections about grief through the lens of my own life experiences. Coming to prison, and all the losses within that experience, is replete with grief. It is also full of regret.

I have written before that regret is not a bad thing, for it can be used as a catalyst for dramatic, life-altering change. But for regret to yield positive change, it must be used properly. Woltersdorff highlights seven results of owning one's grief redemptively, and I list them here, altered slightly, to draw a parallel between grief and regret when both are owned redemptively. For my purposes here, regret, when owned redemptively, produces:

1. Reordered loves--we love things that are more accurately worth loving.
Regretting the harm one causes others makes one re-evaluate what he loves and why he loves it. It alters priorities so that one's aspired values become one's espoused values. One learns to love the right things.

2. A savoring, with gratitude, of the good things in life.
Losing access to so much in life makes one savor, with gratitude, even the small things. Good things, like a word of praise, a child's laughter, a firey sunrise, a small piece of chocolate, a shower with adjustable heat, become precious.

3. A deepened and expanded empathy.
Regret owned redemptively causes one to feel for the hurt others experience. When one hurts for the harm he's caused, he can't help but hurt for others who have been harmed in some way.

4. A strengthening of one's cry against injustice.
When one hurts for others, the natural response is to cry out against injustice. One takes up the cause of calling out that which harms others.

5. A strengthening of one's energy to alleviate the causes of suffering.
It is not enough to voice one's objection to injustice. One who has owned his regret redemptively also joins the fight against the causes of injustice and suffering in its various forms.

6. A provoking to more deeply reflect on how we understand and cope with regret.
Regret can be a burden, but it can also, when owned redemptively, be used for positive, life-altering change. For this change to occur though, one has to be able to reflect deeply on how one understands and copes with regret.

7. An enabling of one to enter more deeply into the heart of God. 
Regret drives one to seek grace, which is at the very heart of Who God is. As one enters the place of grace, it also forms him to become a grace-giving person, because he understands more fully the depth of grace he has received from God. 

Regret is not the same as grief, but it *is* a form of grief. Like grief, it too can lead to new motivations, new ways of constructing one's story. But for regret to be transformative, it must first be embraced, owned, redemptively.

(Thank you to Nicholas Woltersdorff's lecture notes from The Fuller Symposium on the Integration of Faith and Psychology, January 1993, on which I relied for this post.)