Week 9: Forgiveness

 "The greatest joys of life are experienced in happy family relationships. The most poignant of sorrows, the most bleak and forlorn feelings of misery come of unhappy family life. We have many failures in the world, but the greatest of these, in my judgment, is that failure which is found in broken homes. Immeasurable is the heartache. The root of most of this lies in selfishness. The cure for most of it can be found in repentance on the part of the offender and forgiveness on the part of the offended.”
~ Gordon B. Hinckley

Forgiveness is the willingness to let go from one's mind and heart the desire for revenge, the bitter, angry feelings, and the constant re-telling of past wrongs.

I thought that last bit was particularly interesting, because even if I claim I've forgiven someone, I still bring up and recount the problem, often as a joke. But it's possible that that is evidence of me still holding on to my animosity.

Some quick points:

* Forgiveness is a process more than it is an event.

* You can forgive and still grieve; for the sinner, for lost hope, for wounds that need healing, etc.

* Forgiving someone does not mean that that person is not responsible for their behavior.

* Forgiveness does not mean that you put yourself in a position where you can be further hurt, such as staying in an abusive home. Forgiveness is having a clean and wiser heart.

“Bitterness poisons mostly the one who harbors it in his heart…”

President Spencer W. Kimball
Miracle of Forgiveness

Every day we have opportunities to forgive, in both ordinary and extraordinary circumstances. C.S. Lewis said:

 "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it up carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”


The Savior’s Great Intercessory Prayer:
And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou has given me, that they may be one, as we are.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us . . .
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one;
(John 17:11, 19, 21-23; emphasis added)
The Savior taught:
Therefore, if ye shall come unto me, or shall desire to come unto me, or if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee;
Leave thou thy gift before the altar, and go thy way unto thy brother, and first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
(JST Matt. 5:25-26)

I pray that we might all follow the Savior's words, and forgive/pray for those that have aught against us. I love you all!