I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

Have you ever had a moment when you’re going along life, living well, seemingly got things together and all of the sudden you get hit with a realization that maybe, just maybe, a life situation wasn’t quite what you thought it was? Maybe it’s a conviction thing, maybe it’s a realization of joy somewhere you didn’t see it before, but it comes out of nowhere and you have this desire to get it out of your head? Ever feel that way?
Well I’m feeling that way, have been for a couple of days. I’m realizing that there was something that happened in my life a couple years ago that I never really processed. Yesterday I was driving home from another great meeting with my mentor, sitting in traffic on Foster and listening to a cover of Coldplay’s “Fix You” when it hit me. The line I put as the title, “I promise you I will learn from my mistakes” … I felt this pull on my heart that is really hard to explain if you’ve never experienced it. I felt like God was whispering to me, “Have you learned? You messed up there, that time with that person, you messed that up. Have you learned?”
It was a gentle nudging, not a harsh calling out. It was like I was finally in the place to hear that that situation was equally (if not more) my fault than the other person. But it left me thinking, that situation has long been boxed up and put on a shelf. We are (seemingly) fine now. But I keep having this overwhelming feeling that I owe this person an apology. But it was two years ago! How do I go backwards and say, “whoops, my bad, I know that was my fault now and I apologize.” Wouldn’t that be unbelievably awkward? Two years is a really long time!
Then I thought to myself of the times where I have felt like someone has wronged me and I was waiting for an apology. I may have forgiven them and moved on, I may even still be friends with them. But that never changed the fact that I was (am) still wondering if they knew how much that hurt and if they were sorry for it.
More times than not, we are wrong. More times than not we accidentally hurt someone because of where we are at at the time. I didn’t purposely hurt this person, I would never want to do that, but I did. Because of where I was at and my own person bents, I hurt this person. I am aware now (with the help of friends) to realize just how much so. And I can’t help but think that this person deserves to know that I am sorry.
The thing is, we don’t have a precedent for this. We can’t actually look at what Jesus did because, being diving and perfect, he never accidentally hurt someone because of his shortcomings. We can only ask ourselves what he said about how we treat other people. And he told us to love our neighbor as ourselves. The “golden rule” of our childhood. I would never want someone to treat me this way, so it’s time for me to suck it up – awkward as it may be – and apologize.
I wish I could come to these realizations earlier so I wouldn’t be in this type of situation, but I’m stubborn, I realize that. But I can promise, I will learn from my mistakes and be more self aware next time.