If I Could Turn Back Time 

   “Late have I loved you, Beauty so very ancient and so ever new.  Late have I love you!  You were within but I was without.” (St. Augustine, “Confessions”) 

   As I look back over my life I often find myself wishing I could turn back time and come to my Lord sooner.  So many years I struggled on my own and not fully His.  So many things I did to offend, to sin against Him.

   Perhaps I could have loved more deeply.  How wonderful to have loved my wife even more completely than I did and still do.  To have God guide me more closely in the raising of my children, teaching them the love of God above all else, because nothing else truly matters.

   How much more I could have loved God.  His love for me is unending and has no bounds, but my love had limits and conditions.  Sometimes it was almost as if my love for Him was a bargaining chip; answer this or that prayer and I’ll love you more.  Yet His love is so intense, so great that He would give His only Son that by His life, death, and resurrection I might have the chance to spend eternal life with Him.

   Sadly, I can’t go back and do those things that I should have done or reject those that I should not have done.  I can’t return to my youth and give more of my life to Him, to serve Him better and longer.  Yet He does not hold my delay against me.  Through all I have done, the sins I have committed, He has loved me, reached out to me, forgiven me, and called me to come home to Him.

   The past is gone, and I can’t change it.  But there is still today and perhaps tomorrow or even many tomorrows in which I can give myself completely to Him.  I can’t go back, but with His help I can go forward to my home in the heavenly kingdom promised to those who believe.