My husband and I recently made the excruciating decision to leave a church we helped grow and deeply loved. For months, we went back and forth nearly every night after the kids were in bed. What could we have done differently? Why didn’t we bring that up sooner? We seamlessly segued from processing to tormenting ourselves until we were utterly worn out. And in the end, we succeeded only in prolonging our suffering and deepening our regret.
Throughout the course of our lives, we all feel the occasional twinge of regret. Though regret shares many similarities with guilt and shame, the three are distinct. Guilt percolates to the surface when we have disappointed others or done something wrong (particularly if it has caused another person harm or pain).
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And BTW Judson Regular (otherwise a very nice font used for this page) sucks for non-West-European characters (see what it did with my first name, Matěj).
I wonder where is the start of illegitimate regret and drowning in self-pity and where is the end of completely legitimate grieving. If your article was in fact about the Boston Vineyard, then I have to admit that I’ve spent almost a year of despair how could the Lord ever take away from me so awesome spiritual community as the Vineyard had been and why did He led me to so awful place as my hometown (let’s not go to the point when I’ve recognized this feeling and what it said about my faith in the Lord). Of course, when grieving we do and think stupid things, that comes from the definition of not doing well.
A year later I got a privilege to spent couple of weeks in the Cambridge again, but then I’ve felt strongly that although it feels nice, friendlier, and familiar, I didn’t have my place there; in fact, it felt like that proverbial golden cage. I knew that my place is in that tiny and depressively never-growing enough community in Prague (if you think VCFC felt like a place with revolving doors in a moments, let me introduce you to truly expats’ church). And if felt good and challenging to be back at Prague then (and then the pastor asked me to be an elder and things got even weirder turn).
Blessings,
Matěj