Topic : Regret

In his autobiography, Just as I Am, Billy Graham tells about a conversation he had with John F. Kennedy shortly after his election:

On the way back to the Kennedy house, the president-elect stopped the car and turned to me.

“Do you believe in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ?’ he asked.

“I most certainly do.”

“Well, does my church believe it?”

“They have it in their creeds.”

“They don’t preach it,” he said. “They don’t tell us much about it. I’d like to know what you think.”

“I explained what the Bible said about Christ coming the first time, dying on the Cross, rising from the dead, and then promising that he would come back again. ‘Only then,’ I said, ‘are we going to have permanent world peace.’”

“Very interesting,” he said, looking away. “We’ll have to talk more about that someday.” And he drove on.”

Several years later, the two met again, at the 1963 National Prayer Breakfast. “I had the flu,” Graham remembers. “After I gave my short talk, and he gave his, we walked out of the hotel to his car together, as was always our custom. At the curb, he turned to me.”

“Billy, could you ride back to the White House with me? I’d like to see you for a minute.”

“Mr. President, I’ve got a fever,” I protested. “Not only am I weak, but I don’t want to give you this thing. Couldn’t we wait and talk some other time?”

It was a cold, snowy day, and I was freezing as I stood there without my overcoat.

“Of course,’ he said graciously.”

But the two would never meet again. Later that year, Kennedy was shot dead. Graham comments, “His hesitation at the car door, and his request, haunt me still. What was on his mind? Should I have gone with him? It was an irrecoverable moment.”

Billy Graham, Just As I Am

On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister became the first man in history to run a mile in less than 4 minutes. Within 2 months, John Landy eclipsed the record by 1.4 seconds. On August 7, 1954, the two met together for a historic race. As they moved into the last lap, Landy held the lead. It looked as if he would win, but as he neared the finish he was haunted by the question, “Where is Bannister?” As he turned to look, Bannister took the lead. Landy later told a Time magazine reporter, “If I hadn’t looked back, I would have won!”

One of the most descriptive pictures of the Christian life in the Bible is of an athlete competing in a race. First Corinthians 9:24-27 tells us that discipline is the key to winning. In Hebrews 12:1-2, we are encouraged to lay aside anything that might hinder our spiritual advancement and to stay focused on Christ. And in Philippians 3:12-13, the apostle Paul said, “I press on,…forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.”

Lord, give us endurance as we run this race of life. Help us not to wallow in past failures, but to be disciplined and to shun sinful ways. May we fix our eyes on the eternal goal set before us and keep looking unto Jesus. - HGB

Our Daily Bread, August, 1995, page for August 7

They were looking for famous golf sayings to be inscribed in a specified area in the Golf Hall of Fame when it was under construction in Pinehurst, N.C. The first one selected is one of the most often-used expressions the game has produced. It’s “Oh, no!”

Bits & Pieces, January 5, 1995, p. 2

Matilda Kaye Crabtree, 14, of West Monroe, La., used to try to scare her father as a joke. Last week, she made a tragic miscalculation. She had planned to sleep over at a friend’s; instead she stayed home, hid in a closet and then made scary noises when her parents arrived. Her father grabbed a .357- caliber pistol. “Boo!” she shouted. His shot hit her in the neck. Her final words to him: “I love you, Daddy.”

U.S. News & World, 11-21-94, p. 28

Sarah was rich. She had inherited twenty million dollars. Plus she had an additional income of one thousand dollars a day. That’s a lot of money any day, but it was immense in the late 1800s.

Sarah was well known. She was the belle of New Haven, Connecticut. No social event was complete without her presence. No one 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 support. Organizations sought her endorsement.

Sarah was rich. Well known. Powerful. And miserable.

Her only daughter had died at five weeks of age. Then her husband had passed away. She was left alone with her name, her money, her memories,…and her guilt.

It was her guilt that caused her to move west. A passion for penance drove her to San Jose, California. Her yesterdays imprisoned her todays, and she yearned for freedom.

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 every day, twenty-four hours a day, to build a mansion.

Observers were intrigued by the project. Sarah’s instructions were more than eccentric…they were eerie. The design had a macabre touch. Each window was to have thirteen panes, each wall thirteen panels, each closet thirteen hooks, and each 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 and 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 acquainted with her story might answer. “There were the visitors…”

And the visitors came each night.

Legend has it that every evening at midnight, a servant would pass through the secret labyrinth that led to the bell tower. He would ring the bell…to summon the spirits. Sarah would then enter the “blue room,” a room reserved for her and her nocturnal guests. Together they would linger until 2:00 a.m., when the bell would be rung again. Sarah would return to her quarters; the ghosts would return to their graves.

Who comprised this legion of phantoms'

Indians and soldiers killed on the U.S. frontier. They had all been killed by bullets from the most popular rifle in America—the Winchester. What had brought millions of dollars to Sarah Winchester had brought death to them.

So she spent her remaining years in a castle of regret, providing a home for the dead.

You can see this poltergeist place in San Jose, if you wish. You can tour its halls and see its remains.

But to see what unresolved guilt can do to a human being, you don’t have to go to the Winchester mansion. Lives imprisoned by yesterday’s guilt are in your own city. Hearts haunted by failure are in your own neighborhood. People plagued by pitfalls are just down the street .. or just down the hall.

There is, wrote Paul, a “worldly sorrow” that “brings death.” A guilt that kills. A sorrow that’s fatal. A venomous regret that’s deadly.

How many Sarah Winchesters do you know? How far do you have to go to find a soul haunted by ghosts of the past? Maybe not very far.

Maybe Sarah’s story is your story.

In the Eye of the Storm by Max Lucado, Word Publishing, 1991, pp. 193-195

1. Showing kindness to an aged person.

2. Destroying a letter written in anger.

3. Offering an apology that will save a friendship.

4. Stopping a scandal that was ruining a reputation.

5. Helping a boy or girl find themselves.

6. Taking time to show consideration to parents, friends, brothers and sisters.

7. Refraining from gossip when others around you delight in it.

8. Refusing to do a thing which is wrong, although others do it.

9. Living according to your convictions.

10. Accepting the judgment of God on any question.

Pulpit Helps, May, 1991

In 1904 William Borden, heir to the Borden Dairy Estate, graduated from a Chicago high school a millionaire. His parents gave him a trip around the world. Traveling through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe gave Borden a burden for the world’s hurting people. Writing home, he said, “I’m going to give my life to prepare for the mission field.” When he made this decision, he wrote in the back of his Bible two words: No Reserves. Turning down high paying job offers after graduation from Yale University, he entered two more words in his Bible: No Retreats. Completing studies at Princeton Seminary, Borden sailed for China to work with Muslims, stopping first at Egypt for some preparation. While there he was stricken with cerebral meningitis and died within a month. A waste, you say! Not in God’s plan. In his Bible underneath the words No Reserves and No Retreats, he had written the words No Regrets.

Our Daily Bread, December 31, 1988

• It is better to sleep on what you plan to do than to be kept awake by what you’ve done. - Anon
• Adults most common regret: I never took enough risks. Next: I wasn’t assertive enough, and I lacked self-discipline. - Rickard T. Kuiner, March, 1989, Homemade.

We all have regrets, according to Dr. Richard Kinnier of Arizona State Univ. The most common regret was not being a better student, not studying more. Other common regrets include not being more assertive, not having more self-discipline, not taking more risks, not spending quality time with families. One surprise showed up: money appears to be insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Dr. Merrill Douglass, in Homemade, April, 1990

When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ
And He shows me His plan for me;
The plan of my life as it might have been
Had He had His way, and I see
How I blocked Him here and I checked Him there
And I would not yield my will,
Shall I see grief in my Savior’s eyes;
Grief though He loves me still'

Oh, He’d have me rich, and I stand there poor,
Stripped of all but His grace,
While my memory runs like a hunted thing
Down the paths I can’t retrace.
Then my desolate heart will well-nigh break
With tears that I cannot shed.
I’ll cover my face with my empty hands
And bow my uncrowned head.

No. Lord of the years that are left to me
I yield them to Thy hand.
Take me, make me, mold me
To the pattern Thou hast planned.

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