I felt like a fraud.

I stared at the screen, rereading the draft for the hundredth time: 

“I’m really sorry for turning this in late again. I know deadlines are important, and I’ll try harder to stay on top of things in the future. I really appreciate your understanding.” 

It sounded decent—earnest, polite, and hopefully sincere enough to win me some sympathy.

This wasn’t the first time I’d written something like this. It’s wasn’t even the first time that week. I genuinely felt terrible for letting them down. I wanted to change. I wanted to be the student who turns things in on time, who didn’t beg for mercy at the eleventh hour.

I’d made promises before. I’d told myself this would be the last time a hundred times over. And yet, here I was. Another missed deadline and another half-hearted assurance that I’d “try harder.”

The truth was, I didn’t believe things would get better. I thought I just wasn’t cut out for this. I wasn’t disciplined enough, wasn’t organized enough, wasn’t enough.

And that crushing realization led to this final thought: 

What’s the point of apologizing if nothing ever changes, if I never change?

When Apologies Feel Hopeless

Apologies made from a place of “not being enough” carry guilt and shame. 

They acknowledge the truth of a wrong but focus on fixing it with promises of improvement. Without a solid foundation, those promises feel hollow—leaving us stuck in a cycle of guilt, effort, and eventual failure.

Striving apologies are often driven by fear: 

• Fear of rejection.

• Fear of being seen as inadequate.

• Fear that no matter what we say or do, nothing will ever change. 

They focus on proving worth, but in doing so, they miss the deeper truth of who we are.

This cycle, exhausting and endless, isn’t what God intends for us. There’s another way—a way rooted not in proving ourselves but in living out the identity God has already given us.

Hopeful Apologies: Moving From Identity

For years, my apologies were this way. They were sincere but tinged with desperation. I was striving to prove I could change, hoping to avoid rejection, but deep down, I doubted my ability to live up to my promises.

When Christ entered my life, everything changed.

I still made mistakes, of course, but I learned to apologize not from a place of striving but from identity. God had already made me new, and my behavior was simply catching up to the truth of who I was. 

Apologies became less about convincing others (or myself) that I could be better and more about confessing the truth: 

“I am learning to live like the new creation God has made me to be.”

That understanding shaped how I now approach apologies—not as a desperate attempt to fix things, but as an extension of my faith and identity in Christ.

The Anatomy of a True Apology

A true apology reflects God’s heart and is rooted in humility, honesty, and faith. Here’s what that can look like: