Sometimes we beat ourselves up when something goes wrong. We convince ourselves that if we had only done it this way instead of doing it that way, things would have been better. If we had only said something different, we would have been more helpful. If we had only…

It is so much easier to listen to the negative tapes recorded in the recesses of our brains than to listen to the truth tapes.

My daughter in-law tells the story of when she was young and sitting in the living room where her dad was watching a baseball game. Every now and then she would glance up from her book when he would holler for his favorite team or express disappointment over an error made. She was inattentive to the specifics of the game, for the most part.

The game was almost over and it was tied. The pitcher threw a ball, a hit was made and an easy catch was missed. She was watching.

“He lost the game for the whole team,” she exclaimed.

“What?” her dad questioned. “Weren’t you watching the game?”

“Yes. But he lost the game for the rest of the team at the end.”

“No he didn’t. Didn’t you see so and so in the third inning miss that catch? In the fourth inning one of their best hitters struck out. There was an error in the fifth. It takes the whole team to win and it takes the whole team to lose. The sole responsibility of whether they win or lost never rests on one player alone.”

For some reason, she took that tidbit of wisdom to heart and shared it with me the other day. It was something I needed to hear.

Often when things take a bad turn in someone’s life that I am closely connected to, I examine what I could have done differently. I examine what I might have done wrong. I often tend to blame myself for the bad stuff because if I had only…

The truth is that the consequences in the lives of those we love, do not rest on the teachings and training of just one person. It does not rest on the influence of just one individual. A popular saying a few years back was, “It takes a village to raise a child”. There is much truth in that.

It takes a whole lifetime of different people, from different walks of life to have an impact on one person. A life is not carved, influenced, or impacted merely by one person.

Parents are responsible for the care, nurturing, training, protection, and upbringing of their children. Though we try to train them up in God’s truth, with wisdom gleaned from our own personal experiences – try to protect them from harm of any sort, the fact is, others are influencing them as well, whether good or bad. Kids are constantly hearing differing opinions and beliefs and deciding for themselves what they want to accept as truth… or not. They eventually come to an age where they will make their own choices, sometimes regardless of what they were taught as a child at home. There is no room for ‘if I had only…’ because at that point there were countless others who had an impact on that one life.

There are many things, if given the opportunity, we would most likely go back in time and do differently. Since we are not able to fix what has been done, we have to accept that we either did the best we could with what we had and what we knew or yes, we goofed big time. Yet still, we need to move on, admit we may have been able to do better, and apologize if it is needed. Make the wrong right. That is where the responsibility ends until the other party responds. You cannot make them forgive you. However, you can forgive yourself and move on.

There is no room for the ‘if only-s’ in this life. They only serve to keep us bound to the past instead of living in the present and learning from our errors so that we can be better in the future. The errors others make in their lives do not rest on the shoulder of one single person. We all make mistakes and we all have watched others make some of their mistakes. We can either learn from them (and some are doozies) or blame someone else (including ourselves) for the poor choices made by someone we love.

If we would stop beating ourselves up, we would realize that we are not the only person that has had a significant influence in another person’s life. The entire village did. In some cases, the ‘village’ (family, church, group, classroom, sports team) needs to gather and make a wrong, right again and realize they all may have had a part to play.

When a coach sits with his team after a game of defeat, he does not single out one specific player, pinning the loss on just him. The entire team gets the talk. The entire team is told where the errors were made. They review where others on the team might have been able to step in and help.

The next time the ‘If I had only’ tape turns on in your head, remember that we can have a significant impact on the life of one individual, but so do many others. Good or bad.’ If you honestly feel you’ve had a part to play in another person’s troubles, take what you’re responsible for, deal with it in a healthy way (ask forgiveness, seek counseling, etc) and then… move on. You will not do your team any good just sitting on the bench, telling yourself, “If I had only…” Get up and get back in the game.