We are not Dogs

For some of us we live in the "woulda, coulda, shoulda world" and we can't get out or we don't want to get out. We continually think about what we would have done differently or what could have been or what we should have said. We like that world. It's comfortable. Nothing changes there. We never have to grow or learn anything new. Proverbs 26:11 says, "As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly." Are we no better than dogs?
I have been listening to people lately and I have come to the realization that for some of us we never learn to "let it go". For humans vomit comes dressed in different clothes, for some it is old boyfriends, girlfriends, friendships, career choices, a divorce, it is a something different for everyone. It doesn't matter how it is dressed, it's all vomit. We keep whining and going back to toxic people, old ways of thinking, bad habits, or bad behavior. If we are not progressing and not learning from our past then, according to Proverbs, we are fools and we are no better than a dog.
After Kyler has lost a game, he will dwell on that game for the rest of the day, most of the evening, and sometimes he will carry it with him through the next day. He will replay every at bat, every play in the field, every pitch, over and over in his head trying to figure out how they lost. If we wins, he may talk about it for a few hours, but then he is focused on the next game. Even at ten years old losing is his vomit and he can't let it go. He keeps going back to it. I know some of that behavior comes from being competitive, but I started to think about how much of it comes from observing me and my behavior? Is that what I want to teach him, that it is alright to keep going back to his vomit?
So, I am working on trying to be a better example, I am trying to "let it go". When we ask God to forgive us, He forgives us from EVERYTHING no matter what we did. We have His promise that the vomit is gone, FOREVER. We have a hard time understanding unconditional forgiveness because Satan and all his devious ways, won't allow us to forget. His job is to keep us swimming in the vomit pool and to keep us thinking we are not worthy of God's love. God made us in His image and gave us free will to choose Him and to have life more abundantly. We have to learn to stay away from the vomit.
My life is not always what I thought it would be, in fact it is very different than I had pictured it as a little girl. Honestly, it could be better in some areas if I would stop acting like a dog. Some people act like dogs because they don't know any better, no one has ever shown them a better way of life. I know better and I want my son to see the better way in me, so, when I feel like I am returning to my own vomit I have started repeating, "I am not a dog" it is a simple statement that helps to remind me that I am better than our four legged friends.