I Really Screwed Up

Conversations with Cinthia

What do you do with your own moral failures? Today Cinthia talks about when you know you have gone beyond “nobody’s-perfect-everybody-makes-mistakes” territory and ventured into real harm. Everyone has been there – those times we shock ourselves and rock our own self-perceptions with the depths of our bad choices. You may even have experienced remorse so deep that you didn’t want to continue living. In these states, guilt and shame become like termites in your mind, eating away at your sense of worth, even while another part of your brain is trying to deal with the rest of your day.

Isaiah 1:18 (NLT) says, “’Come now, let’s settle this,’ says the LORD. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.’” This does not imply a casual cover-up, a smoothing-over or minimization of injustice. This is cosmic -level cleansing, and it is the only kind that can truly settle our debts. So why is it hard to engage with God over our wrongs, allowing Him to cover them with His blood, and then moving through the comeback process? Why do we sometimes resist receiving forgiveness from God or others, let alone giving it to ourselves? And, for others, why is it so much easier to minimize or dismiss what we have done, getting angry at anyone who suggests we should talk about it or deal with it head-on?

Provers 26:11 (ESV) says, “Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.” Fools do not learn from their mistakes. The enemy of our souls wants us to believe that the past is still alive and can still be changed at some level by wallowing, or that it can be escaped; we relive and rehash or resist and deny, trying somehow to take the power and sting out of the memories. But refusing to forgive ourselves is foolish, just as refusing to acknowledge the depths of our errors means we cannot forgive or heal from what really happened. Whether we wallow in our mistakes (which is different than facing them) or turn away from acknowledging that we are guilty, these responses increase our chances of repeating them. We eventually find ourselves repeating similar kinds of harm again, even if it looks different every time, because our lives are dominated by the past folly that has taken over our present. To those who have forgiven us, the past is the past. But if we have not learned from our errors, healed from them, made amends, resolved them, and moved forward in humility, we are drawn back to the same folly again and again. Only the most repentant and truly changed are willing to attempt a comeback. We love a comeback, and God loves a comeback. But it takes humility. A fool keeps coming back to the grossest thing that he or she has done, and that thing affects everything else in life until it is faced.

So what does facing it look like? Humbly apologize. Make no excuses. Accept and validate the effect your choice has had on others. This is the hardest and most important thing. Honoring the impact of your choice on other people, on yourself, and on God is crucial. Make amends where you can for the sake of those you have harmed. If some will not forgive you, forgive them graciously, and resist being offended because that will keep you stuck in the vomit (see above). Remember, they didn’t ask for this, and they may not want to move forward with you. Forgive them, and understand that you put them in this position. Learn from your mistakes. The more you can commit to looking at and learning from your mistakes, the more you become a safe person. Take responsibility for fixing it however you can.

While you are learning from it, though, and are honoring the feelings and needs of those you harmed, you must decide to forgive yourself and receive forgiveness from others where it is offered. This is hard because it requires accepting the version of ourselves that was able to err like that. None of us likes to mess up, to shock ourselves. It takes humility to stop fighting the reality that we did what we did and accept it. But if we don’t learn to forgive ourselves, we will not be able to forgive others. Forgiveness goes in more than one direction. Trying to keep the past alive will eventually cause you to repeat it. Others will end up in a position to have to repair your ego. You will cripple their ability to move forward with you because they will have to decide to stay with you in your past or leave you in your past in order to move into their future.

Bury what is dead once you learn from it. Don’t disrespect the future by lamenting the past. Do not let the past hold you back from participating in the present. Don’t be the adult whose ego is so fragile that you cannot get over yourself. Understand that God got over your sin before you were born. He saw it a long time ago, and He has already died for it. He came back from the dead, and He has the power to help you come back from this. He wants to help you learn and take you forward. Only the strong can say, “I did that. I can explain it, but I cannot excuse it. I will learn from it and never do it again.”

We all have a past. We all have a future. Making peace with it can make it easier for others. Nobody can mess up in exactly the same way as you, but nobody can make the same comeback, either. God has already put love, peace, forgiveness – everything you need to move forward – into the heavenly bank accounts for you. Don’t neglect it. Don’t waste all your time and energy hiding what you did and letting shame affect your reasoning; that is NOT what it means to take responsibility.

Ecclesiastes 4:10 says to pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up. You can keep yourself in the same position by refusing to let others help you, forgive you, give you mercy, and move forward. Accept help. Arrogance can keep you on the ground, locked inside yourself. Keeping shameful secrets is not ultimately useful (Luke 8:17).

If you have never struggled with any of this, be sure to check yourself – Do you have a moral code? Are you aware when you are off-track? Do you have people who will tell you, or do you feel entitled not to care or take responsibility? Do you lower the expectations, trying to protect yourself from hurt?

Ecclesiastes says that there is nothing new under the sun. Mistakes are not original. How you recover, learn, and use it well can be original. This is a process and is not comfortable. But people are often far more willing to forgive you than you are to forgive yourself. And, if you are willing to fix what you have done, you often gain respect in the process. So be your own hero. Surprise yourself in a good way. Humble yourself and ask for forgiveness. Be the person people admire because you take responsibility for your failings.