Regret and Restoration

“ [A] teenager asked me thirty-five tough questions for a school project, including,
"What's your biggest regret?" Instantly I knew. .Top of the list is the hateful ways I treated my younger sister when we were growing up.” -Paula Hendricks, http://www.liesyoungwomenbelieve.com/index.php?id=925

As I read the above blog post, my heart melted inside me. That would be on the top of my list as well. I got tears in my eyes as I read the remainder of the post, especially the note of regret she recently wrote to her annoying, bratty little sister now turned best friend.

“Dear 'lil sis, Mind sharing a bed this weekend? I promise I won't kick you or scratch you or
yell at you for wearing my hair tie without asking, like I did so many times when we shared a room growing up. Instead, I'll pile your pillow with chocolate and tuck you in and point out the shining moon and pray for you as you drift off to sleep—like I wish I'd done all those nights and years. Because now I see you weren't that annoying little sister; it was me all along—I was the evil ogre sister. Thanks for not holding all those years against me... I love you!”

We had always been “close” in a certain sense of the word, but the older, bossy (and sometimes downright cruel) sister in me and the annoying “baby of the family” in her didn’t always produce
the most pleasant of words or actions. Especially during the pre-teen/adolescent season. Praise God for a sudden change of heart in the early/mid teen years for me. Call it salvation, growing up, a big dose of sanctification, or whatever (I’m not entirely sure), but my relationship to her changed dramatically. I’m thankful to God for his Son Jesus who died not only for the “outsiders” but for a selfish, unloving pastor’s daughter, thankful for grace, thankful for a sister who forgives me and who is now one of my very best friends and the person who I’ve missed the most since moving away. Oh we still have our moments occasionally – she’ll accuse me (accurately!) of being in grumpy moods and haphazardly plucking her eyebrows…she leaves a mess in my room and has the uncanny ability to lose my clothes, but we both know at the end of the day as we spend the late night hours talking by the fireplace – or in the last 8 months talking on the phone –that we would do anything for each other.

"I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust have eaten.."

Joel 2:25