Ever done something really stupid you wish you could take back? I mean something so foolish it was epic?

I have. And not just once. I’m guessing you have too.

And, like me, you’ve probably wished you could go back in time. Erase it. Have a do-over, as it were.

Well, no one can go back in time. But we can all have a do-over of sorts. It’s called a second chance.

Merriam-Webster defines a second chance as an opportunity to try something again after failing at it. I’d like to expand that a little. To me, a second chance is having the will and strength to change and being blessed by the grace of one who is willing to forgive. Sometimes that one is on earth. Sometimes that One is in heaven.

As in all other things, God’s dealings with His imperfect children give us the perfect example. The scriptures are bursting with the stories of people who made mistakes—sometimes really big ones—but then got a second chance and made the most of it. To read more, click the button below.

One particularly stands out in my mind. Before he was the Apostle Paul, he was Saul—a man who was so ruthlessly determined to wipe out Christianity at any cost that he destroyed churches, had Christians tossed into prison, and even oversaw their murders. Then he got a second chance. With it, he became one of the greatest soldiers for Christ, dedicating his entire life to spreading the message of salvation to the world.

Another was the great Apostle Peter, who denied ever knowing Jesus—not just once, but three times. He used his second chance to preside over Christ’s Church and teach people about the Savior until his dying breath. Incidentally, when the Romans crucified him for his faith, Peter demanded that he be crucified upside down because he didn’t feel worthy to die in the same way Jesus did.

There are lots of inspiring second-chance stories today. You’ve probably seen some. You might even be one. Because I’m a writer, one of my favorites is that of Stephen King. Talk about a rough start—by the time he got out of college, he had so many rejected works that he stored them in a crate. He submitted the novel Carrie thirty times and was rejected thirty times. That was it. He’d had it. He threw the manuscript in the trash and walked away.

Big mistake if it had all ended right there.

Luckily, his wife retrieved it out of the trash and begged him to try one more time. To take a second chance. He did—and the rest is history. He’s published more than sixty novels, and his new releases almost always land at the top of the bestseller lists.

If you need a second chance, consider this: your mistakes are just rough drafts. You can take a second chance, start over, and create the final version. Even if your heart is breaking and your soul is sore and you don’t know quite where to start. Just start. When you think about it, many miracles were nothing more than second chances for people who thought all hope was lost.

Sure, it can be hard. Yes, it almost always requires deep humility to admit you were wrong and dogged determination to change what needs to be changed. But what you do with your second chance can make all the difference in the world.

When I think of second chances, I like to think of butterflies: those caterpillars who creep almost imperceptibly, who gaze skyward and dream of a different life, who have the courage, the grit, to form a cocoon and make the necessary changes. I love this way of looking at them, and at us, as expressed by Karen Kingsbury in Oceans Apart:

“I tell of hearts and souls and dances . . .
Butterflies and second chances;
Desperate ones and dreamers bound,
Seeking life from barren ground,
Who suffer on in earthly fate
The bitter pain of agony hate,
Might but they stop and here forgive
Would break the bonds to breathe and live
And find that God in goodness brings
A chance for change, the hope of wings
To rest in Him, and self to die
And so become a butterfly.”

Those mistakes? They happened. They still do. But they’re not the final draft. You can still create the polished version. Every moment of your life is a second chance. And when you get that second chance, take it all the way. Become a butterfly.