If you’ve ever heard the expression “albatross around my neck”—a phrase referring to a tiresome burden—you’ve heard an allusion to English poet Samuel Coleridge’s famous poem “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” In the poem, a sailor shoots and kills a harmless, friendly albatross. The crew believes the mariner’s cruel deed curses their voyage and forces him to wear the dead bird around his neck as punishment.

Are there regrets in your life that feel like a heavy weight around your neck? All of us have moments we’d do anything to take back. It can feel like we’re cursed to carry the weight of our guilt and regret forever.

Yet God’s grace can free our hearts from even the most painful regret. We all have sin (1 John 1:8, 10), but when we honestly confess our burdens to God, we’re promised he “will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (v. 9). As His grace rushes in, His light and love can flow through us (2:10), freeing us to love those around us (3:14).

In Coleridge’s poem, the tormented mariner also eventually experiences this grace. When love for God’s creation rushes into his heart and compels him to pray, the albatross falls off his neck, vanishing forever “like lead into the sea.”