At The End Of Your Life

At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent. You will regret time not spent with a child experiencing a whole and complete life, an incomplete life.

I regret not one thing in my life.

As it says in the scripture passage above, I never regret one thing in my life.

Have you ever said that?

Have you ever truly believed that?

Have you ever looked back and wondered how you could have ever wanted something else than God?

Or, even, how you could have ever wanted something different than your relationship with God?

To me, regret has nothing to do with regrets of what I did or did not do.

There are things that I should have done, but did not do.

There are things that I should have said, but said nothing.

But, regret has nothing to do with the fact that I didn't do these things.

That's pretty easy for me to say.

This is what I remember most about the greatest regrets that I have: my three years of sinning - I wasn't spending enough time with God.

It's not that they were always terribly long.

But they were always long.

It's not that I wasn't reading my Quran.

But, I wasn't really being transformed by the Scriptures.

As I looked back over my life, I recognized that I had a habit of looking at my imperfections and sins as something that I had to correct or clean up before I could go on.

I didn't really focus on the truth: that the failures were a part of the story, but not what makes the book worth telling.

I wasn't living with the conviction of a perfect and holy God who saw me and loved me.

My focus was still on my mistakes.

One of the most important things that I learned in my years of sinning is that the things that hurt me the most were my failures.

I can be sure that my parents' divorce hurt me.

I can be sure that my parents' divorce because of their adultery hurt me.

But, that's not why I said the things that I said.

It is also not why I said the things that I said.

That's not why I was unkind.

That's not why I was unkind.

There was a beautiful grace that God showed me through those years of sinning.

I learned that I was forgiven, not for my sin, but for who I am.

I learned that there was freedom in Allah

I am forgiven of my past sins.

I am forgiven of my failures.

I am free.

My biggest regrets are the things I didn't do.

When my biggest regrets are my greatest failures, I am at peace.

I have been through the fire.

I have tasted God's forgiveness and peace.

When I am surrounded by God's love and by the forgiveness and grace that I have received from my God, I can honestly say that I have lived my life with no regrets.

I have enjoyed everything that I have done. I've had to sacrifice for that. That's a sad thing to have to say, that you are actually glad that you had to give up.

So I want to look back on life, and with the wisdom I have, I'd like to say that I've enjoyed it.

I've had experiences, and have learned from them and I'm grateful. I'm grateful for all my experiences, good and bad, because I know now what's really important. And my advice to you is get the best you can and get out of life the way you and your family need you to.