If I had it to do over would I?

If I had it to do over would I do it again?

I read this question in one of my books yesterday.   I believe that it was meant in the context of "your whole life".  So if you could go back from today and get a "do-over" as my kids often call it, would you? and what would you change?

I've always been someone who I believe and have told others "I have no regrets".   It just seems silly to think of your life in a way where you would wish you could taken and changed parts.   We've all seen those movies where they get a wish, and they wish to change just one "moment", then from changing just that "moment" their whole live ends up changing. 

How precious is a moment?  According to these movie producers, pretty precious.   According to God, I think he'd have to agree. 

People remember moments.  The first time you said I love you to your spouse.   The day you found out you were pregnant.   The day you hit that home-run and won the game for your team.  We all remember moments.  Unfortunately, we remember the bad ones too.....the time you didn't block the goal and lost the game for your team, the time the boy made fun of you on the school bus, or the time in P.E. where you had to pick teams and you were chosen last.  So which moments are more important, the good or the bad?   

I've had lots of good & bad moments I can remember so well I can remember what I was wearing, sometimes the song that was playing, what the other person was wearing, what kind of day it was, I remember moments distinctively.  I used to let the bad moments "haunt" me.   I would think of them all the time, and get that sick stomach feeling and think "why did I say that?" or "why did I do that?".   Oddly enough as much as I'd let them haunt me, it never ever occurred for me to ask God for a "do-over".   I have just always believed things happened for a reason, and I guess even as a child before I understood this concept, I still understood it in a childlike way that our life is what we make of it.  (I think I may of heard that from my mom a few times).  ;)

So my answer to the question is Yes.   Yes, I would do every single bit of it over, even though it means spending times I'd rather not..........laying on the bathroom floor crying so hard I would throw up over my divorce, or when I broke up with my first boyfriend and I thought the world would just stop for me right there.   Even the day the boys walking behind me on our way home after getting off the school bus lifted up my skirt, and then ran away (I was humiliated!).   Even the moments that I'm going through now that are not the best at times......I wouldn't change it.   I can change the future, but the past is what makes me who I am, and that it what I focus on.  All those bad and good things that happened to me helped shape me to where I am now, and I like me.  Jamie Lee Curtis has a book called "I'm gonna like me...." obviously its a children's book, but I read it to my boys often.   It talks about self-esteem and how at the end of moments like being chosen last, or doing the right thing vs. going with the crowd, or doing something nice, that is what makes you "like me" and others like you too!

So, even though I'm not where I want to be, I thank God I'm not where I used to be, and ask God to guide me to where he needs me to be.   All this is made up of moments, and even being a natural gambler, I'll "hold" my cards at bet where I'm at right now is exactly where God wants me to be!

A couple years ago when I could no longer afford to buy the expensive gifts my teenagers required I stopped trying.   I thought about what I could "give" them that would be special to them, but didn't cost a fortune.  It finally came to me, I could give them memories (moments).   So one year my two daughters and I left at 10:30pm and drove over to the coast in the middle of the night......we had our little adventures (I'll keep them between us) and got home about 4am in the morning (where I then had to be up at 7 and to a soccer game for another child), but it was worth every "moment".  You see at the end of our lifetimes, the "moments" will be what we remember.

So make your moments special, give your kids the gift of happy memories vs. Ipods, they will thank you some day I promise, and if not you can blame me!  :)

Here's to some good moments! (I'm having my in-laws stay the night.....gotta go clean!)