There are times when we revisit our past mistakes and mourn in regret. You might even host a pity party now and then because let’s face it, sometimes it feels good to feel sorry for yourself when you have been wronged and ill-treated by a friend or a spouse.

I believe some people take pleasure during sad times because they crave the attention of sympathetic listeners while others regressed into mental depression.

Psychological experts will tell you that self-pity is an unhealthy habit to practice. 

After my marital separation, for a few months, every now and then I would find myself remembering the past and crying pitifully.

One day while I was washing the dishes my mind drifted on the plans that we had as a couple, and the dreams that would never be fulfilled and the bitter tears began to roll down my face.

Suddenly, I heard a distinct voice saying sternly, “How long will you mourn for Saul?”

I jumped and look around startled, but no one else was in the room because my children were in school. So I shrugged my shoulders and returned to the dishes in the sink. Then the voice once more said, “How long will you mourn for Saul?”

I then realized that it was the voice of God speaking to me from my heart, but I could not understand the question. I knew the identity of Saul, but I could not figure out why I was mourning for him? I decided to search the concordance in my Bible.

Sure enough, I found the passage of scripture in 1 Samuel 16.

As a result of King Saul’s stubbornness and disobedience the Lord rejected him from being king over His people. But the prophet Samuel loved Saul and mourned for him. He knew that it was only a matter of time that the king would lose the throne of Israel and be killed.

One day the Lord said to Samuel,

“How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go; I am sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite. For I have provided Myself a king among his sons.” (1 Samuel 16:1)

Samuel was in a depress state lamenting on the demise of Saul so the Lord commanded that he get out of this pitiful condition, wash, get dress, fill his horn with anointing oil and go to the house of Jessie to anoint a new king over Israel.

How does this story apply to me I wondered? I realized that I was still mourning over my failed marriage, and the Lord was telling me that it was time to dry the tears because He had rejected my marriage. The past was over, and it was time to begin my journey to the destiny that He planned for me.

I obeyed the Lord and since then I have never looked back or cried in self-pity.

Are you still lamenting your past failures? Are you still hoping that your estrange spouse who left you years ago will return to you? Perhaps God is telling you to dry your tears, forget the past and move on.