When you go on a short term mission trip, it takes a little time to "process" what happened on the trip. Yeah. I'm such an expert on that having taken a whopping total of 4 short term mission trips....

Maybe I should rephrase that.

On every short term mission trip I have gone on, when I come home it takes a little time to "process" what happened on the trip. 

The drive to Kansas City was to have taken about 9 hours. Welllll..... we took a little detour in Nebraska City and had a little fun. Actually, the whole drive was fun. We stopped at an Kimmel's Orchard, drove by Arbor Lodge, and ate at a restaurant downtown that was pretty good. Bobbi Jo, the director of the Healing House, met us at an exit on the edge of Kansas City and we followed her into town to The Healing House.

When Bobbi Jo met us in the parking lot at the exit, she got a real serious look on her face and said something along the lines of "We just need to get the bullet proof vests out of the back of my truck for y'all." My face must have communicated something, because she roared with laughter and retold the story a few times while we were there.

When we got to The Healing House(which is actually 4 houses and 1 apartment building), we had time to put some food on our plates and eat before a meeting started.

I have recently learned that the 12-point recovery steps that we usually associate with AA actually originally came from an organization with a Christian foundation. There wasn't the nebulous "higher being", but the God of the Bible was the core and foundation for recovery.

That night, the point they were on was about making restitution to those you have hurt because of your addictions.

The pain and regrets thickened the air in the room. Oh, the sadness. 

But!! Our God is a God of hope, and there was also hope expressed. God loves them. God's power is there for them to have victory over their addictions. God will continously heal them. There is something much, much better in eternity to look forward to.

I am old enough to have plenty of regrets, too. We all do. Mine are not as heavy as what I heard at that first meeting we attended.

"Surely our griefs He did bear"

Jesus not only died for my sin, He also bore my grief, my sadness. What love is that??

But now, O Lord, where do I look? My hope is in you.

Yes, we have regrets, it is part of the human condition since we all fall short of the glory of God, but we do not have to be alone with our regrets.

I think of the apostle Peter, and the regret that he would've had after denying Jesus 3 times even after he was WARNED he would do that.

I think of the apostle Paul, who searched out and hunted those who believed in Jesus for the sole purpose of their harm, when he had his original name of Saul.

These two men had plenty to regret, didn't they? Yet, when they humbled themselves under the mighty hand of God, He used them in awesome ways.

My regrets, and the regrets of those at the meeting, remind us of how desparately we need the cross. Maybe not such a bad thing after all?