PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “Would you take my regrets?-For I Remember Everything.”
By: Ron Woodrum
Sara was rich. She had inherited twenty million dollars. Plus she had an additional income of one thousand dollars a day. That’s alot of money any day, but it was immense in the late 1800’s. Sarah was well known. She was the “Belle of New Haven”, Connecticut. No social event was complete without her presence. No one that was anyone hosted a party without inviting her. Sarah was powerful. Her name and money would open almost any door in America. Colleges wanted her donations. Politicians clamored for her sukpport. Organizations sought her endorsement. She was rich. Well known. Powerful…and MISERABLE!!!
Her only daoughter had died at five weeks of age. Then her husband passed away. Whe was left alone with her name, her money, and her memories…and her guilt. It was her guilt that caused her to move west. A passion for penance drover her to San Jose, California. Her yesterdays imprisoned her todays, and she yearned for freedom. For deliverance. For an answer to her guilt and regrets. She bought an eight-room farmhouse plus one hundred sixty adjoining acres. She hired sixteen carpenters and put them to work. For the next thirty-eight years, craftsmen labored everyk day, twenty-four hours a day, to build her mansion. Observers were intrigued by the project. Sarah’s instructions were more that eccentric…they were eerie. The design of her mansion had a macabre touch. Each window was to have thrirteen panes; each wall thirteen panels;each closet tkhriteen hooks; eachk chandelier thirteen globes. The floor plan was ghoulish. Corridors snaked randomly, some leading nowhere. One door opened to a blank wall; another to a fifty-foot drop. One set of stairs led to a ceiling that had no door. Trap doors. Secret passageways; Tunnels. This was no retirement home for Sarah’s future; it was a castle for her past. The making of this mysterious mansion only ended when Sarah died. The completed estate sprawled over six acres; had six kitchens; thirteen bathrooms; forty stairways; forty-seven fireplaces; fifty-two skylights, four hundred sixty-seven doors, ten thousand windows; one hundred sixty rooms, and a bell tower. Why did Sarah want such a castle? Didn’t she live alone? “Well-sort of”, those who were acquainted with her would answer. But Sarah “had visitors”…oh every night “there were visitors!”
The story goes that every evening a midnight, a servant would pass through the secret labyrinth that led to the bell tower. He would ring the bell…to summon the guests. Sarah would enter the Blue room, a room reserved for her and her nocturnal guests. Together they would linger together until 2:00 A.M. Then the bell would ring again, and Sarah would return to her quarters, and her ghostly guests would return to their graves. Who were these legion of pohantoms? They were Indians and soldiers killed on the U.S. Frontier. They had been killed by bullets from the popular rifle in America-the Winchester. What had brought millions of dollars to Sarah Winchester had brought death to them. Sarah spent her remaining years in a Castle of Regret, sharing her home with spirits of the past, who haunted her nightly with regrets. You can visit San Jose, and tour this Castle of Regret. But you know…most of us don’t have to make that trek to be familiar with regret. We all are acquainted with our own Castle of Regrets that we have built over the years. They sometimes visit us nightly to torment us about “what might have been” had we made different choices; gone different directions; made better choices; followed the Lord’s leading better; resisted our own selfish choices, and chose His best for ourselves.
People deal differently with those regrets. Frank Sinatra, in his song My Way. a song later recorded and released by Elvis Presley, just before he died, expressed how he dealt with regrets. He wrote:
“And now the end is near,
and so I face the final curtain
My friend, I’ll say it clear
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain
I’ve lived a life that’s full
I’ve traveled each and every by highway
But more, much more than thkis
I did it my way.
Regrets, I’ve had a few,
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
I saw it through without exemption
I’ve planned, each charted course
Each careful step along the by way
And more, much more than this
I did it my way”.
Many of us can echo that, but when it comes to regrets it is not often easy to say “too few to mention”. Often the are too many to enumerate! What do we do with them? Do we live in our own Castle of Despair, in a prison of the past? I googled the words “What do I do with my regrets”. Guess what came up. A song, by a popular group called Five Finger Death Punch. I know nothing about them. But listen to their lyrics of their song–I Remember Everything.
“If I could hold back the rain
would you numb the pain
Cause I remember everything
If I could help you forget
would you take my regrets
Cause I remember everything”
Many people sing that song every day. “Would you stop the rain? Help me numb the pain? If I help you forget. Would you take my regrets?” The Bible is filled with stories of people who are filled with regrets. Eve for listening to the serpent. Adam for listening to Eve. Cain for killing Abel. Jacob for stealing his brother’s blessing and birthright. Moses for killing the Egyptian and hiding him in the sand. David for committing adultery with Bathsheba, and killing her husband to cover it up. Peter for denying the Lord. Judas for betraying the Lord. Saul of Tarsus for murdering Christians in the name of God. Regrets. Regrets. Regrets. The ghosts of the past that come and let us entertain them nightly in the blue rooms of our memories! Asking and never answering the question “what if”. John Greenleaf Whittier said it best, in his poem Maud Muller, when he wrote,
“The saddest words of tongue or pen
Are the words, ‘it might have been’ “
The Apostle Paul had the answer when he wrote to the Philiippians these words…”forgetting those things that are behind. I keep on reaching to those things ahead…I keep on pressing toward the high mark of the upward calling of God, in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14). There is the answer to regret. Deniers become Declarers. Persecutors become Proclaimers. Murderers become Monarchs that glorify God. Give your regrets to the one who had none, His blood can cleanse the deepest stain, and He can put those ghosts to bed once and for all and help you make sense of your castle of regrets. He’ll take your regrets and give you restoration!