Hello and welcome to the last podcast episode of the year. Since we’re closing out 2025, I wanted to talk a little bit about dealing with year end regret as you’re evaluating 2025, looking to 2026 or whenever you happen to land on this episode, if you’re dealing with regret. That’s what we’re talking about today.
Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock.. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you.
With practical tools for developing greater peace, we’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you.
So let’s dive right into today’s episode. I think this is a very common topic for Christians. Worked with many different types of people. Worked with people who were carried regret over abortion, past drug and alcohol use, relationships that fell apart. Mistakes that they felt like they made that maybe they felt like were mistakes that they couldn’t recover from, or that OCD told them they couldn’t be forgiven for those things.
Of course we know that is a lie. We know that if we confess our sins, God does forgive us, but OCD will tell you all kinds of things like that. I really try hard not to live with regrets, and the reason for that is because I do believe that I’m intentional about the decisions and choices that I make, and I know that things don’t always go as we plan in life, that we’re only dealing with the information that we have now to make a certain decision.
And when we get further on down the line, we say, oh, if I had only known this or only known that, I wouldn’t have made that decision. Of course, that’s something that we all go through, but we didn’t have that information perhaps prior. And so we can enter this conversation, I think with a level of self-compassion, but also reframe mistakes or failures as an opportunity for learning.
And if we do that, then we can grow. Change into who God desires for us to be. If we spend all of our time just beating ourselves up about mistakes or regrets, things we wish we had done differently, it actually keeps us from being able to move forward in a healthy, productive way. This is just what I have noticed from my own life experience, but also of course, the experience of counseling hundreds of thousands of people at this point.
Are there some things that I wish went differently in 2025? For sure. I think that I stayed in certain business relationships for too long. I had tried to hire an assistant. I worked on training her and it just didn’t work out. We weren’t a good fit in this particular situation. I kept her for too long. I should have let her go much sooner than I did, and I should have done a better job of recruiting the next person.
The next person, unfortunately, did not work out either, but I made some shifts and changes. I decided to hire within some personal connections that I had and thought, okay, this is gonna work out better. Unfortunately, it did not. So I learned once again from that experience now on my third assistant, which makes me sound like a horrible person to work for.
I don’t think that’s the case. I think I just really didn’t know what I was doing in terms of hiring and had to make these mistakes in order to figure it out and say, okay, I need to approach this with a different level than I had been. I was approaching it with this like very chill. Laid back Carrie approach.
I just need somebody for a few hours a week. Do you think maybe you could help me out approach, instead of approaching it from, Hey, Carrie is the boss and has specific needs for her organization that really would help her out be able to fulfill the things that God has called her to do. And so when I got into that stance the third time around, I believe that God brought me the right person.
I can carry that experience with me to the next time that I bring somebody on the team. I think I was super blessed with my very first podcast assistant that I ever hired several years ago who does all our editing, who edits videos for the course, who does really a variety of behind the scenes stuff for you guys that you just don’t even know about.
Works on our emails every week. She has been amazing, and I didn’t have to go through that same process. That I had to go through this time around hiring someone. I didn’t have the opportunity to learn it then I am thankful ’cause I might have just given up and tried to do it all myself. But I had the opportunity and persevered and learned from this experience.
But I said, well, do you have any wishes about it going differently? Yes. Would I advise someone else to do things differently? Definitely, yes. Don’t take the casual energy approach in hiring somebody, even if you only need a few hours a week. That’s my free tidbit of advice that has nothing to do with OCD.
I also had some relationship disconnections and fallouts this year, which has really caused me to pray through and evaluate the friendships in my life and the business connections. I knew that at some point or another, this relationship was going to fall out because that was this person’s pattern. I had even said something to them about it, like, I’m kind of surprised that you haven’t written me off.
Uh, like you have written most of the other people off in your life. And of course the response I got was, oh no, this is different, et cetera. That was those other people. And then of course I became the other person, because when people are trying to tell you about themselves and you look at the pattern, then you’re going to see that pattern be repeated unless that person is intentionally working to change that pattern.
And in this individual, they were not working on changing that pattern. I think what I took away and learned from that experience was. To be selective about who I invite into my inner circle. That was one thing that I learned and unfortunately the sad part about that is I’ve been a little bit more closed off probably from some people that are trying to get to know me.
I think because of the hurt and the woundedness there, that’s something I’m still in process and I’m praying through and just asking God to give me the wisdom and know like when it’s okay to open up and when I need to hold back a little bit more until I know that person well enough to open up to them.
I don’t have any regrets about being in that relationship for the time that I was in it. I think that we were able to support each other in a way, and we both needed that. I am sad about how it ended and unfortunately there just wasn’t any desire on that other person’s part to make any type of repair or restoration or coming back together.
That was hurtful because I felt like we were worth that and had hoped that we would be able to do that or find some type of resolution. So know that sometimes you can do your best and things still don’t go the way that you want them to go or the way that you feel like they should go. That’s just a reality that we have to sit with in life.
The thing about OCD is that it likes to keep you ruminating on the past. Maybe you’ve replayed scenarios in your mind over and over again of things that have already happened, and typically these are negative things that you’re playing over and over. If we’re stuck in the past, then it’s a huge distraction from whatever God is calling you to in the present right now.
And so we have to be able to put some of those. Things from the to bed so that we can move forward in confidence and in walking where God wants us to in the present and moving into the future. And the new year of course, is a great time for that fresh start. I have a four step process for you on dealing with.
I was preparing for this episode, I thought, what’s a good Bible character that we could really look at together who maybe dealt with some regret, and how did they deal with that in a healthy way? First, you can look at someone that didn’t deal with it in a healthy way. We have Judas who has a regret over betraying Jesus and then ends up going out and killing himself.
And you can contrast this with Peter’s denial of Jesus three times and how he’s restored in John 21. We’re gonna get into that a little bit later. Spoiler alert. But the first step is acknowledge that you can’t change the past. Now, this sounds pretty simplistic and it is, but it’s still hard to do. I think we spend so much time fighting reality of what is, if I were to say about that relationship, well, what if I had brought up this or what if I had said that?
Would that have somehow changed the outcome? Or should I not have connected myself with that person as deeply as I did? Should I have kept some distance? You could just go around and around and around that block all day long. But the reality is that relationship is now severed and I can’t do anything about it.
And the only person that can potentially do something about that is that other person. Peter could not go back in time and say, okay, I’m not gonna deny Jesus no. Now that was his full intentions because he told Jesus No. Like I would die for you. I wouldn’t deny you. And Jesus predicted that at the Last Supper.
However, once it was done, it was done. He couldn’t change his behavior. So know that you can’t go back and change your behavior, whatever that a part of the equation was, and it may be something that you had some control over. It may have been a situation that you didn’t have full control over, that the other person made some negative decisions and you were affected by them.
We have to actually sit here and acknowledge what happened, what was my role or my decisions in this situation, and then to be really, really honest with ourselves at a very flat line. Newspaper headline level, for example, the relationship is over. My first two assistants did not work out, and when we sit with that, we have to then therefore be able to sit with the emotions that come up with that, whether that’s sadness, whether that’s anger and frustration.
Because oftentimes we are fighting the reality or fighting the truth because we don’t wanna sit and feel those hard things. These are God-given emotions, and there are going to be experiences that you have in life that are hard, that involve suffering. That involve pain and we need to be able to deal with the feelings that arise when those things come up.
Being honest with ourself also leads into step number two, which is to seek repentance and forgiveness as necessary. If there’s something that you’ve done wrong and you know that you need to ask God for forgiveness, you know that maybe you need to ask another person for forgiveness and if, if you don’t follow step one and aren’t honest about what’s really occurred.
Then you’re not gonna seek step two of being able to acknowledge that sin to God, acknowledge that regret that you have to God so that he can do something with it, so that we can, like I said, move forward from it. So if we’re acknowledging it, then we can give it over to God. We can seek forgiveness. And if you have sought forgiveness, then you need to know that you are forgiven.
I see communication sometimes where people will say to me, you know, I just need to forgive myself. I know God’s forgiven me, and I need to forgive myself. And this actually came up in our small group recently, and I said, I just don’t see that in scripture. I don’t see anywhere where it says God’s forgiven.
You now go forgive yourself. What we need to do is we need to accept the truth of God’s forgiveness. We need to say, I’m forgiven because the scripture tells me that I’m, that I know that I have asked for forgiveness for this. I know I have confessed. I know I have turned away from that sin and made a different choice.
That’s repentance. It’s taken a step turn away from it and people can hold on to stuff for years, in years in years. You can accept God’s forgiveness and let that rest. You do not have to continue to ruminate on past sins. God has separated your sin as far as the east is from the west. If someone’s bringing it up, it’s either you or the devil, and it’s time to let it go.
It’s time to not feed into that really being able to acknowledge the sin or like acknowledge the thing that you felt like you did wrong. Give that over to God, receive forgiveness. Say, and if it’s something that was a long time ago, say, yes, I know that I am forgiven because of what one John one, nine says that if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
There are no exceptions to that rule. There are no, well, if you committed this sin, you’re not gonna be forgiven. It is what it is. Now the interesting thing about Peter’s situation, when you see him in John 21, your sword, you have to remember what Peter’s original calling was in Matthew four 19. Jesus told Peter, follow me and I will make you fishers of men, because he was out fishing with his brother, Andrew, but this was his calling.
Come follow me. I’m gonna make you fishers of men. What does Peter do after he denies Jesus? He goes back to his old way of life. He goes to fish, can’t even fish anymore, right? Like he doesn’t catch anything. Kind of a disaster until Jesus says, throw your net on the other side of the boat, and then they collect a bunch of fish.
This is interesting, right, that Jesus comes to Peter to restore him. I don’t see a situation in here where Peter is going to Jesus. Necessarily, he does get outta the boat and run towards him, which is really cool. But God is able to meet us in the midst of our lowest place in the midst of our shame regarding our sin, in the midst of whatever you have been through.
And that’s really, really incredible, is that Jesus knew where to find Peter, that he was gonna find him on this beach. He was gonna find him going back to fishing for fish instead of fishing for men. Has this encounter with Peter of, do You Love Me? Peter says, yes, I love you. And this goes through three times.
And it’s a mirror, essentially of his denials of Jesus, right? And each time Jesus tells him to feed my lambs, feed my sheep, and in this way, kind of restoring him back to his original calling and original ministry as a disciple. So regardless of what you have done, whether it’s something that you did before you were saved, something you did after you were saved, that God has the ability to restore you back to your calling of what he desires for you to do and who he desires for you to be.
The third step in dealing with regret is to learn from it. I think that this is absolutely crucial and important. What is it that we can learn from this and take away and be able to do something differently? In order to do something differently? You have to know how you got there in the first place.
Okay? Where did the door of temptation open up? We know that God always provides a way of escape. But it also talks in scripture about if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out, which is very dramatic. Please don’t go to that level. But sometimes things in scriptures are said to an extreme for emphasis, okay, how did I get in this situation where I committed this sin?
What warning signs did I ignore? Was the spirit trying to nudge me in a different direction? Did I not have a filter on my computer system like I knew that I needed one? Was I lonely and bored and scrolling through TV that I shouldn’t have been watching? Did I need to deal with my loneliness or my bored?
I’m in a different way, like really evaluating your experience. And saying, okay, what do I want to do next time? Do I need a certain level of accountability in my life that I don’t have? What do I need in order to not fall back into this same situation again? This is really huge. A lot of people, they do something, they feel shame from it.
They beat themselves up, they hide. And then they repeat the cycle. They don’t actually ever learn how they got into that place to begin with. So if you’re on the cycle of beating yourself up and living in shame, and then still making the same decisions, know that you can change that. God does provide a way of escape that you can learn new behaviors and that it’s hard, and also that we can submit ourselves to God each and every day for him to change us from the inside out.
It’s not just about us white knuckling through making different choices. Step number four I think is really, really important for OCD. Okay. Understanding that theologically, our sin and the sins of others are covered under the umbrella of God’s sovereignty. That God still used Peter, even though he sinned, even though he denied him three times.
God still used him very mightily. Why did God allow this to happen? I don’t know. Maybe it did something inside of Peter. Maybe it caused him to be more humble and to recognize his need for Christ in a greater way instead of relying on his own self-confidence. Would he have had the same level of passion for Christ had he not denied him?
I mean, I don’t know. I think that’s a question for heaven, right? Like, how did the Lord use this in your life for your good, for his glory? We know that Peter was used very mightily and became one of the apostles of the early church. There’s so much in OCD about decision making where people really fear messing up God’s sovereign plan for their lives.
I feel like if I turn right instead of left, and then somehow I’m really gonna screw things up. I just want you to know if it’s. A moral decision making that you’re trying to make, or maybe it’s not incredibly clear to you right now that the Lord wants to lead and guide you, that he’s not hiding his will from you.
That we have some very clear things that we are to do as Christians and they are love God, love people. What does the Lord require you? But to act justly, love, mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Micah six, eight. We have these commands. In scripture for us that are global, and there is a level underneath that where that could look very, very different.
How you love people and serve people might look a little bit different from how I love and serve them based on who is in your life, based on the passions that God has put within you to serve different people. And that’s okay. And know that if you are seeking God and his will, if you are. Praying and reading your Bible and being in Christian community that God is going to lead and guide you.
We have several scriptures that tell us this and that you’re not gonna mess things up. You were actually not that powerful to be able to do that. Now, you may have made a decision for the Lord and it resulted in some hardships. Status called suffering. That happens quite often. It doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision.
Let’s say for example, that you made a decision to share Christ with one of your coworkers, and then after that your coworker kind of gives you the cold shoulder, seems kind of like angry at you distances themselves, and maybe this is somebody that you are a good friend with. We know that God calls us to be, uh, witnesses, and that always going to go well for us, that we are going to experience persecution as Christians, but oftentimes, OCD will get really wrapped up and say, well, maybe you shouldn’t have said that, and maybe that wasn’t really what God wanted you to do.
And if God wanted you to do it, then it would’ve turned out better. Same thing could be said that just because you go through hard times in your marriage doesn’t mean that God didn’t want you to marry that person. It means that when we get married, it’s like the great grounds for God’s sanctification work in our life.
Marriage and children definitely will do that to you. Watch out because we really start to see ourselves in a different light when we’re in these types of close, intimate relationship and it’s sometimes it brings up best in us. Sometimes that brings out the absolute worst in us, and then we have to bring that to God and say, okay, the worst to me just came out right now.
Like I need the Holy Spirit to transform this ’cause. I don’t want to be this person. I want to be dead to my sin and alive in Christ. And that is a day by day by day process. Doesn’t happen overnight. There are no instant fixes in Christianity. That we are on a journey. We are on a walk, we are abiding, we are being pruned at times so that we will bear more fruit.
That just know that maybe what OCD is telling you might be a distorted or a twisted view of suffering in terms of decision making. I guess sometimes you can do the right thing and things just still don’t work out, and that’s a part of life and it’s hard to deal with. Then we have to feel those feelings, bring those to God and say, here’s where I’m at with this, or I’m confused.
I’m not sure what is my next step here. Regardless of whether you’re dealing with regret from 2025 or you’re dealing with regret from an experience that happened a long time ago, I want you to see if you can take some time to go through these four steps that we outlined, to pray through them, to journal through them and process and see where God has.
I think it’s a beautiful thing in scripture that we have these stories like Peter that give us hope that if God can use someone who denies Jesus three times, then certainly he can use you as well. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.
Christian Faith in OCD is a production of by the Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.
