In the course of life, every man, woman and child will make mistakes.  Things, that upon reflection, we should not have done or said.  The individual who does not do that, is….well, a liar.   The components to bouncing back are several, but necessary to success of restoration.  

Most often the errors we make, are small, and cause little harm.  However, at any time in your life, you can commit an egregious mistake, which could be called a sin in any human sense, when someone is hurt.  It doen’t matter whether YOU feel it is serious or trivial, it is the persons, situations, or results that are injured or caused that determine that.  For what you have done, could well destroy people, property or even a nation. 

It doesn’t even have to intentional, merely irrational, to bring down hurt and damage to people you care about, situations change to harm, or the decimation of life and land, for it to be catastrophic. 

There are several processes that take place, people you must approach, relationships that may never be restored, and retribution that will come back to haunt you, perhaps to the end of your life.  The possibilities are enless, and the what if's can be ugly to contemplate.

Regret for what you did, is the very first step to success at changing.  If you don’t think you did something that caused injury, and injury was the result of your poor judgement, you are very likely to repeat the mistake.  Perhaps worse.  National leaders have done this and caused an entire nation, even the whole world, to stumble.

Once having realized and regretted your action, you must repent.  Basically, repentance is changing your attitude, direction, and behaviour to accommodate good in your life.  It is assimilating the opposite of what attitude caused your bad actions, to that which is good.  Certainly, good in the sense of community, but further, good in the sight of God. 

A harder thing is the next move….asking yourself why you got to where you are, and answering the hard questions honestly.  If what you did hurt someone, then restitution is necessary.  This can be a very hard thing, if the pain caused to another wasn’t property but relational.  It can easily take the rest of your life to restore trust. 

To recover takes internal strength, Determination is vital if you are to in essence, pick up your own bootstraps and raise yourself to a level of  equanimity.  If you have a conscience at all, your own internal pain can destroy you.  Certainly depression is imminent and very likely.   

To be really successful, though you need people around you, both for support and for accountability.  Going alone is a recipe for failure.  It needs to be someone/s you trust. That person needs to have in mind, the same seriousness about your mistake, as you have during the phase of your regret and repentance.  Discipline becomes your friend.  It is the process of making right, to become a habit, internalizing and living by a code, second nature.  Determining that today, you will follow your new creed, as surely as the sun marches across the sky. 

Lastly, learn to serve those around you.  The act of service, gives you a proper sense of humility and teaches you grace for others as well, Perhaps this is another way of looking to God to help you, for humility is what He wants of each of us as well.  He gives us grace each day, for every person, makes mistakes, every day.  To put it more succinctly, we screw up, and in the parlance of Puritan rhetoric, it’s called sin.

Belief in God goes a long way toward helping any individual recover.  Belief in oneself is just as important.  Make sure that your efforts, your path, your desire to bounce back, is not at the expense of others, but at their service.  You can serve with an attitude that supports the actions you are trying to achieve.  You can serve another way too, grouchy about your state, lashing out for your position and its degradation.  Accept that which comes to you, learn from it, be wise and see the principle of progress, and remember it.  Each step is a tool to your success at Bouncing Back.