This song to me is one of regret. There are a few ways that I look at it. One is a person talking to God about running away from Him, which is obvious to me. The other way is a person talking to another person like a parent or mentor who has been involved in their life all while this person was destroying themselves in front of them and doing things to hurt their parent or mentor.
I see both of those because I fit both of them. I want to start with the second thing I see as that was what the song touched in me when I was younger. When I was younger, I struggled with clinical depression. I was also the kind of person who was far too proud to ask for help. I was an angry, hurt, overly-critical perfectionist who pushed away anyone who got close enough to help me. As I was growing up and started to actually receive help, I noticed it and was saddened by how many relationships were destroyed simply because I was too proud to let anyone into my world. The way I treated my parents was especially sad because no matter how much I pushed them away or ignored them or whatever, they kept trying and never gave up. Out of everyone that has come and gone in my life, my parents have been there offering advice whether I asked for it or not. They'd criticize when they thought it'd help or do whatever was in their power to help raise myself and my sisters. All the while we treated them like garbage when we were angry and tried to push them out of our lives. So yes, if I could rewind, I'd take it all back and be more open with them and do my best to let them into my life more.
More importantly is the thing I read into this song(and what I think the song is truly about) is a person talking to God. My life this past year has been amazing. It was like nothing that happened was so life altering to me that my whole world came crashing down like they used to. I had amazing friends, got involved in a great church with great community, finally joined a campus ministry that I love and feel like I belong in. My family was doing well, academics were going well enough, my roommates and I got along and never fought about anything. We had our altercations, but nothing like I had experienced the year before with one particular roommate. The negatives that did happen, didn't even appear so bad anymore.
Now why would I even mention this? Well because this definitely wasn't the case even a few years ago. It used to be that even the small things would drive me crazy and I would just get depressed or angry. I'd push everyone away, and I mean everyone especially God. I was a Christian, but I didn't act like one at all. I doubted God at every turn. I doubted His love and therefore stopped showing love to others. I blamed Him for the negatives in my life and actually believed that there was no way out of the messes I was in.
Hindsight is an amazing thing. Looking back I can see those times that I not only pushed other people away, but pushed God as far away as possible. I see the times where I struggled with things and actually put relationships with certain people in front of God. The point where those relationships became idols. I see how He broke up those relationships in sometimes simple falling outs where we went our separate ways, or, as with the more intensely idolized relationships, tore them to shreds in memorable and regrettable events. I remember one of them specifically, which I will not go into detail on. But I remember not too long ago thinking about those events and thinking that if I could go back to when that falling out started how I would change this or that to salvage the relationship. Yesterday I was reflecting on some things and realized something different. If I could go back to when that relationship died, I probably wouldn't changed anything, but if I did, I would have preferred to go back further in the relationship and not let it become an idol. I would have told myself to get out before I let it get that far. God used that chaos to teach me a lesson that He was the only one that I needed to depend on fully. That my relationship with Him is and will be the most important one in my entire life. Am I sad that I pushed Him away and scorned Him and put up idols before Him? Yes. Would I change anything? No.
It's actually pretty simple. God has taught me so many different things through all of my failures with Him and people and other areas of life. So why would I want to rewind and change those so that I don't learn those lessons? Every single thing that I have done be it good or bad and how I have handled those things have made me into who I am today. They all have taught me different things about who I am, who God is, and why I can't do this on my own.
Is there anything I'd do if I could rewind? I'd just notice more and more how much God's hand has been involved in my life leading me to where I am and how He's still leading me to where I will go.
