Regrets...I have just one.

Regrets...I have just one

Not a few, as the song goes, but just one.
Sure I've made lots of mistakes in my life, but if you learn from them and move on they are not regrets but stepping stones. Regrets are when you wish you could have done something differently.

Secondary school was not a good time for me. I was separated from all my friends from junior school and put in a class where I didn't know anyone. I don't know why they did this, but it was a desperate time for me.
I remember break times, looking around and not knowing anyone. Just standing there like a lemon wondering which click I should approach. I wasn't the most confident person in the world, far from it, I was pretty shy and introverted.
In the end I approached the 'swatty' guys and sat with them. I was the outsider in their conversations, and remember sitting there listening to them and not having a clue what they were talking about.

The weekends I would cycle down the road to see my best friend. We'd known each other since play group and were as thick as thieves. I don't really know what had happened to me, I was probably under great psychological stress, but at school one day as I was waiting for the bus he came up to chat to me and I pushed him away. Forcibly. I suppose I was falling to bits inside, but it's no excuse. I pushed away the one friend I had who was trying to reach me.

That's my one regret.
If I could go back and change just one thing, that would be it.

Recently I've got to know that friend again through Facebook, and we attended each other's 40th birthday parties.
This last weekend I invited him, his brother and families up for lunch.
We've been renewing our friendship, but this time I had the opportunity to talk privately to him face to face. Which I took, and asked him to forgive me.
Sorry doesn't cut it. Sorry is such a meaningless word. It's only the act of forgiveness that involves the other party, allowing them to have their say, and as the Americans say 'closure'.
It went well. It's a very humbling experience to admit your faults and sins and seek reconciliation, but I'm through fighting the promptings of The Holy Spirit.