Nothing is worse than making a bad decision. Nothing. The regret, the guilt, the shame you feel afterwards is absolutely consuming. That nauseating feeling in the pit of your stomach makes it impossible to eat, sleep or think of anything but that crappy choice you made.

You feel like you will never be able to forgive yourself. You feel as though no one will ever look at you the same. You feel like a complete offender of your own laws and you should be sentenced to serve time. These feelings seem to last forever and ever. You feel that there is no emergency exit and you are trapped after taking one wrong turn.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. One bad decision doesn’t make you a bad person. One bad decision won’t make people automatically hate you. One bad decision doesn’t mean you have to live life completely against your character.

One bad decision doesn’t ruin your life.

Entering adulthood is filled with so many open doors, both good and bad. A big part of this stage is being able to choose the right ones, the good ones. Sometimes the choice is clear, and sometimes it's not. A strong urge to walk through the wrong door can either make you realize it’s not the right choice before you enter, or it can end in you walking through it anyway and feeling the wrath that seems to always follow.

The truth about bad decisions is they’re always good. The amount you learn about yourself and what you truly want or need makes you thankful God allowed you to say "yes" to the thing that was so wrong; only when you realize this can you begin to move on and truly forgive yourself.

The pain you feel after a bad decision is only redeemed when you realize it was the right decision at the right time. You lived and you learned.

"The pain that you’ve been feeling, can’t compare to the joy that’s coming." - Romans 8:18