What if you could do a life’s do-over? What would it be? Often we have the inclination to say, “I wish I could have a do-over on life as a whole.” If you could pick one area of your life, what would you pick?
I asked some friends this question. Some said, “I’d be a better wife/husband. Many expressed the sentiment, “I wish I had been a better mother/father.” What would yours be, you might ask. My answer would be, “I don’t know. Maybe I would have been a better wife and mother. Perhaps I would have done more for other people.”
When I was teaching, and students somehow found out that I married at age fifteen, they would ask, “Would you do that again if you could do it over?” They were serious, so I gave great thought to their question. By marrying that young, I missed my junior/senior prom. I missed the socialization of my last two years of high school. I missed living independently, during my college years. The list goes on, but this is what I finally answered: “I missed much by marrying that young, and we struggled financially, but I ended up with great happiness. My husband Steve and I built a wonderful relationship that lasted for 56 years, so how could I ever say I wouldn’t do it again, but I would say, I wouldn’t recommend it for you.”
“Why not?” they asked.
I recounted many of the hardships of a teenage marriage – financial, immaturity, nativity, and lack of knowing how to handle life situations.
I almost laughed aloud at some of my early disasters. I remember Steve coming to the kitchen and asking what I was doing. I told him I was cooking his breakfast before he had to go to work, “At two A.M.?” he asked.
I guess I had looked at the clock wrong and striving to be the perfect wife; I was trying to do it right. Another day I dropped a can of bacon grease in the kitchen floor one day and just stood staring at it. Where was Mom at times like this? I had no idea how to clean it up, but necessity is an excellent teacher. I managed.
I also had many laundry mishaps as I went through the learning experience. I washed my lace going-away dress, and it came out of the washer looking as though it might fit an eight year old. I guess it was dry-clean-only garment. I dyed all of Steve’s underwear pink when I put some red slacks in the white load. I cried a lot. I laughed some too.
One day after our first son was born Steve came home from work and said he had been the laughing stock of the office. “Why?” I asked.
He pulled an item from his coat pocket. Hs said, “This is what I pulled out of my back pocket when I reached for my handkerchief.” It was a thin diaper shirt. Oops! I guess I messed up again.
Just today I had lunch with two lady friends. I posed the question of what they would do-over if they could. One expressed she had been too tolerant of her husband’s earlier infidelity. The other one thought about it a while and said she couldn’t think of anything. About that time our food arrived. The other friend said, “Okay Miss Perfect, you can say the blessing then.” We laughed so hard she could hardly regain her composure enough to pray.
In November my second novel was released. The title is A New Beginning: God’s Second Chances. In it, many characters get a second chance in life.
Our God IS a God of second chances. He can take messed-up lives or lives marked by bad decisions and make something beautiful of them. As a new year is here, make it a time to allow God to do his redeeming work I your life.
1 John 1: 9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Isaiah 1:18 Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.