Welcome to Responding with Prayer,
An opportunity to respond to the complex everyday experiences that lift us up and bring us down.
My name is Jess.
I have struggled with attending to prayer and hope this little offering brings you closer to the Creator.
Today's meditation is on regret.
Before we dive in,
Let's start by just taking five big breaths.
Deep breathing has been studied and found to change how we engage stress in situations.
This is good for slowing down,
Preparing for prayer,
But also a good practice for all kinds of situations we find ourselves in.
So feel yourself breathe for just one minute.
That was literally 60 seconds.
If your mind went to other places just now or happens throughout this time,
That's okay.
It's natural.
You're still here.
So let's move on.
Take a moment and identify one person or situation that you are grateful for today.
We'll take a moment out loud or in your head.
Express that gratitude towards God.
Regret is a deep challenge.
We cannot change the past events and requisite hurts.
Regret is an opportunity to work out with God,
Forgiveness,
Acceptance,
And faith.
This meditation won't solve your regrets,
But regret bounces up in our lives all the time,
And we don't have to be bound by it.
So if you're able,
Put out your arms and turn up your palms in a posture of release to the Creator.
Our bodies are an important part of prayer.
The Christian scriptures tell us a very practical spiritual opportunity.
Cast your cares towards the divine.
So imagine you wrote these regrets or the feelings they bring on the palms of your hands as an act of submission.
What words would be there?
God,
We place into your hands these things on our hands.
We give to you our regrets and their impact on our lives.
Now a lot of meditation teaches us the necessary ability to release.
Let's also focus on what healthy things we put into that space of release.
If we're releasing the cares of our regrets,
Then what are we needing to take on to fill that space?
As you close your hands,
What accompanying things do you need to deal with in healthy ways as you relate to regret?
How about forgiveness,
Grace,
Self-acceptance,
Growth,
And learning?
Regret keeps us from our purpose because it focuses us on a past that we cannot change.
However,
In prayer we can slow down and make commitments to our core foundation.
Spend a minute expressing to God how regret is impacting your life and what freedoms you want to live into.
God,
We accept the freedom that comes with submission to you.
So often we fight against the very abundant life that you have for us.
So we accept the grace of learning,
The grace of growing from mistakes,
The grace of being loved by a God who does not judge us.
Now taking time today did not change the past.
It may have changed your orientation towards some of your regrets.
You may need to take some greater steps to address these past mistakes.
But the great spiritual writers in the Christian tradition have often maintained that prayer's greatest gift is not that it suddenly changes our situation,
But that it often changes us.
You you you you you you you you
