The following Vocare spiritual practice is featured in Church Anew’s Lent in a Box for 2023 and was developed by Rev. Dr. Charlene Rachuy Cox as part of the Nourishing Vocation Project of The Lutheran Center at St. Olaf College. We will be offering one piece of the Vocare practice each week. 

Vocare is an ongoing spiritual practice designed to help you discern and embrace your various callings so that you can more intentionally live life on purpose for the common good. 

Through guided reflection on personal life experiences via the lenses of values, openness, call, attentiveness, regrets, and experiences of God’s presence, the Vocare practice nourishes discernment of three primary questions. Who am I called to be? What am I called to do? Why am I here?

Vocare Practice: Called TO Regret

You are invited to focus on your personal regrets by both naming and reframing them, and by so doing, nourish in a particular way, God’s call for both your present and your future. When carefully tended to so that hindsight becomes insight, our regrets can be powerful and lifegiving voices of call for us. Use the time between the following guided questions for your own reflection and meditation. Bring to mind a circumstance or experience of regret from your own life. Is this a regret that still has you dwelling in hindsight, or is it a regret from which you now have gained insight? How has this regret shaped your life and its horizons?

Reflect upon your regrets

• How easy it is for me to name and learn from my regrets?

• What are my regrets from today?

• What insight do I gain from them?

• What do I need for tomorrow?

Prayer

Help me, O God, to learn from my regrets so that I might live more faithfully in each tomorrow. In Jesus name, Amen.

Check out our Instagram reel for a video version of this reflection.