Hello. Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?
This Grammy award winning song by Adele has had monstrous success- and amazingly has been the source of more skits, covers, articles, and parodies then seemingly possible.
Obviously, it’s a very catchy song. A friend remarked to me that Adele said the song was actually about her own self-discovery, not about a relationship. I snarkishly countered back, did Adele actually listen to the lyrics of the song she wrote? I even saw an article written about how many people have contacted old relationships because of the song. But the more I think about it, a song about personal self-reflection actually makes a lot of sense.
“Hello from the other side, I must have called a thousand times to tell you I’m sorry.” Have you ever wanted to apologize to yourself for something that happened so long ago it should be forgotten, but it still isn’t? Have you ever wished you could go back in time and change something in your life? People discussing this topic often go back and forth- well, I’m who I am because of that decision or that action… I actually used to say to myself- oh, if I had made a different decision in that case, or chosen a different response in this one, I wouldn’t have been able to learn from that experience. But doesn’t it still make you wonder sometimes- could you maybe have been better if not for that thing?
“They say that time’s supposed to heal ya, but I ain’t done much healing” is one of the lines that I love. Wouldn’t it be great if time really did make things better? But far too often, it simply lets a flame that should have been addressed years ago smolder and destroy other parts of our heart. Unforgiveness, bitterness, jealousy, and anger do not simply pass away with time. Far too often, they take out multiple other relationships and even our own health even decades later. I’ve actually seen it in some patients before.
So exactly how much thinking about the past do you need to do? Adele clearly tried “a thousand times” and didn’t actually get anywhere. Clearly there is no perfect answer, and no way to really know most of the time how our decisions and our past could have changed the course of our lives. But the real key, I think, is not the mistake but the recovery. Either way, scripture encourages us to think through the decisions we have made- to look at both their consequences and our reason for doing them. Those who do not take the time to weigh their actions and thoughts are actually called fools in Scripture (“The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.” Proverbs 14:8) Either way, you grow not from the decision itself but from the process of revisiting it. Even if, like in the song lyrics, you can’t come to a clear conclusion, you will likely be better off for it.
The answers might not be there right away, but the process is worth it. How are you doing working through the decisions and not just ignoring the pain of the past?