Regret arrives quietly and stays late. It replays the word you should have kept, the prayer you kept postponing, the door you let close. Everyone who has lived long enough carries some version of it, and the weight is real.
The Qur'an speaks to this ache without shaming the one who feels it. It names the sorrow of what we neglected, and in the same breath it opens a way back — mercy that outlasts our mistakes and a Lord who answers those who return. These verses hold both truths at once.
39:53 — Say: my servants who have wronged yourselves through excess, do not despair of God's mercy. God forgives all sins. Indeed, he is the Forgiving, the Merciful.
12:87 — My sons, go and seek news of Yusuf and his brother, and do not despair of God's mercy. None despairs of God's mercy except those who deny him.
39:56 — Lest a soul should say, "How bitter my regret for how I neglected God, and I was among the mockers."
89:24 — He will say, "If only I had sent something ahead for this life of mine."
23:99 — Until, when death comes to one of them, he says, "My Lord, send me back,
66:8 — You who believe, turn to God in sincere repentance. It may be that your Lord will wipe away your wrongs and admit you into gardens through which rivers flow, on a day when God will not disgrace the Prophet or those who believed with him. Their light will race before them and on their right, and they will say, 'Our Lord, perfect our light for us and forgive us. Indeed, you have power over all things.'
2:222 — They ask you about menstruation. Say: it is a vulnerable time, so keep apart from women during their menses, and do not approach them until they are cleansed. When they have purified themselves, come to them as God has directed you. God loves those who turn back to him, and he loves those who keep themselves pure.
63:10 — And spend from what we have provided you, before death comes to one of you and he says, "My Lord, if only you would delay me for a little while longer, so I might give in charity and be among the righteous."