What if?

Today has been a 'what-if' day.  It comes about as our region is once again battered by severe weather.  I headed out this morning to visit a local church coffee morning in the spirit of good inter-church relationships and just seconds after I'd walked past the front of the church, their large sign with their name on was blown off by a gust of wind and shattered on the pavement where I had been walking just seconds before.  I couldn't help think, "What if I had been just a matter of seconds later, or had lingered to read the notices on their notice board?"  It would surely have ended in injury and a trip to hospital.

What if?  It's a question we often ask ourselves and not only after a near miss such as I had this morning.  We will often look back on our lives and ask 'what if I had done things differently?'  Sometimes those moments are affirmative, and at other times a source of regret.  Sometimes the scenario could have had a different outcome if only we had acted differently.

We look back with the benefit of hindsight.  We look back with that additional experience on our side and often there's no way we could have predicted the outcome.  I have struggled with some very painful 'what-if' scenarios - scenarios that had resulted in horrendous human suffering.  I can come to only one conclusion - I did the best I could at the time, there was nothing else I could have done.

When those 'what-if' moments are a source of pain, as they have been for me, the only solution is to take it to the Lord in prayer and seek the forgiveness we so desperately need.  Not just God's forgiveness, but we need to be able to forgive ourselves.  Sometimes accepting those failures are part and parcel of moving on and growing as a result.  Letting go is the hardest thing in the world, but it is what we must do if we are to be at peace with ourselves and with God.