To be human is to mess up and wish you could change. We do it all our lives. Everyone has something in their lives that they wish they could push the re-set button on.  Left hidden, it can become a dreadful and unspeakable skeleton in the closet. When the awful realization comes of a mistake that can't be corrected, all we're left with is a deep regret for the consequences of our action. It can be so overwhelming that some people consider suicide.

Consider a few of the skeletons in my own family's closet:

* A close relative fights with her daughter and refuses to talk to her. The daughter gets cancer. They never make up. The daughter goes to her grave not talking to her mom.

* A family friend has a secret life. He is a scout master who abuses scouts in his troop. Once discovered, it hits the papers and goes to trial. On the day of his indictment, he shoots himself. A member of our family discovers him dying.

* My great-grandmother was an orphan and had little social standing. She was in love with Paul Coin. Coin's mother wrote her a letter saying that she couldn't marry him because he was going to medical school and she would prevent him from doing so.  She was heartbroken and eventually married another man (my great-grandfather).

People, we are so broken. We do things and have things done to us that are incomprehensible. And the only adequate response is to go before almighty God and say, "God, I am so sorry."

A friend, Kelly Ramsey, struggling with her own brokenness, offered up this prayer. I suggest you take the deep, broken things in your life and give them to God with a prayer like this:

     "God, i am so sorry, i have forsaken you. we cry out oh lord why have you forsaken us when we are in pain, but what about all the times before that when you did everything you could to show us the way and we ignored you?

      Lord, I am so sorry, for all the pain i have caused, for all the times i abandoned you for my own will, my flesh, my selfish desire. Lord, i am sorry for all the times i turned my back on someone in need, friends, family and those who i did not know - my brothers and sisters i ignored."

Kelly's prayer struck a cord for many readers who thereafter prayed their own prayers in the comment section of her blog, like this one from Taylor: "God, I am so sorry, for all the things I have done that either have hurt me or hurt someone else. I am sorry. Please forgive me..."

To be human is to have issues. If it helps you, I suggest you use this blog as a confessional booth this morning and leave your issues at his throne.