Forgiving the Past

A friend posted a plea on Facebook, "We never know when someone we're upset with is going to leave this life and we will miss a chance to reconcile. Let's forgive. Let's be kind."

This week I finished reading Elizabeth Smart's newest book about hope, healing, and moving on. She had a whole chapter on forgiveness. (ELIZABETH SMART was talking about forgiveness, people. Consider that.)

A couple of great sections stuck out to me. One was a Martin Luther King, Jr., saying, along the lines of, "When we remember that there's a little good in the worst of a us and a little evil in the best of us, it makes it a lot easier to forgive our enemies." Most of us fall somewhere in the middle of that. Deal with it.

The second thought struck me even more deeply. From someone whose family had all been killed by a young drunk driver, she came to the conclusion that one definition of forgiveness is simply accepting that the past is imperfect, and that is never going to change, and so what? Accept that fact and move on. Recognize that it happened, it was broken, and just move into the future. The past doesn't have to control the present. We don't have to allow it to.

That said, forgiving doesn't mean necessarily embracing those whose actions damaged us, inviting them into our homes. Even though God loves all His children, He isn't going to let all of them live with Him.

Lately I've been looking for ways to "let it go" (no "Frozen"-song cueing intended, I promise) with regards to some past wounds. These concepts from Elizabeth's book feel so helpful to me. So let's forgive. Let's be kind.

How Can I Forgive When I'm Still Being Harmed? (The Opposite of Forgive and Forget)

You've read it a hundred times. We have to forgive others if we want to be forgiven of our sins. We know it's true. We believe that with all our hearts. And we want to obey that--really ache to forgive our oppressor--in our desire to approach the Savior.


However, what do we do when that oppression is still going on full force?


This is the conundrum I have been grappling with over the past few months. Years, actually. But it has hit a crescendo in recent days. I want to forgive, I want to move on, I want to keep the commandment to not hold a grudge against my brother. But the damage hasn't ended.
Usually when I think about forgiving someone, I think about a past wrong, something that has ended and I have to reflect on and get over.


But that isn't always the situation. Sometimes it's ongoing. Sometimes there is nothing we can do to escape the situation, and yet, we need the peace of not being angry or upset or even annoyed by the person inflicting the damage.


This is my problem! This is what I'm dealing with! And how do I forgive?
Well, I went to the scriptures, and at first glance, they just made me feel WORSE.


3 Nephi 12: 23-24
23 Therefore, if ye shall come unto me, or shall desire to come unto me, and rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee—

 24 Go thy way unto thy brother, and first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I will receive you.

Yep, I can't even really pray for help if I'm holding this bad feeling in my heart. Right? I'm harboring anger and a grudge, so I'm not worthy to even come to Him. Right? Well, that's how I took it the first hundred times I read it.

Ugh. Worthless. That's how I felt. And despite my efforts, the ongoing nature of the meanness made it hard to let go and forgive. Just when I thought I had it conquered, boom. Something new showed up, and I was upset all over again.

Discouraging.

However, this time when I read it, I noticed something brand new. It was the phrase "if ye...rememberest."

That phrase struck like a gong in my heart.

Sure, I can't change the behavior. I can't change the situation or the circumstance. I can't change the other person.

But I can forget.

Because it sounds like as long as I FORGET that the "aught against me" exists, I don't have to worry about it.


If I FORGET that the bad stuff is happening, then I actually don't really have to figure out how to forgive the person.

Because I totally FORGOT about it.

Huh.

So, after a few days of ruminating on this concept, I realized that since I was going to be stuck in the rotten situation for some time left to come, I started to pray instead to be able to just FORGET.

I mean, I forget absolutely EVERYTHING else.

I forget to buy light bulbs at the store. I forget to pick up my son from track practice. I forget that my daughter needs a new piano book. I forget where I put my shoes, what I was going into the pantry for, that I really need to have laundry done for tomorrow. I'm an EXPERT at FORGET. I begged the Lord to help me forget.

And then, He did. In his divine goodness, He sent me a dozen slap-me-down trials (mentioned in previous posts) that completely distracted me from the irritation inflicted on me by this person. He sent me hard things. He sent me a bunch of people to serve. He sent me an answer to my many prayers to find someone who would listen to the missionaries, so that I'd be busy a couple of days a week helping her prepare for baptism (which she was and did and yay!) He sent me blessings and a desire to finish some goals, like publishing and promoting a book. He sent me a healing of my long-defunct knee and a renewed ability to run several miles in a row.

And...I FORGOT.

At least for a while during those days. Yes, there were a couple of flare-ups. There were a couple of times where I felt like those disciples who were trying to cast out the evil spirit, and the Savior told them, "However, this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." So I prayed. And fasted.

And I was able to forget. Again.

And even though stuff kept happening, and I'd remember the pain--soon, the Lord would help me refocus on the other issues/blessings/duties/trials of my life, so I could forget. Again.


This has all been happening over the past several months. I'm hoping that sometime circumstances will fully change, that the person will just move away or evaporate from my life. It hasn't happened yet. I'm still in the trenches. And there are good moments and bad. When the bad stuff hits, sometimes I pray for help just to forget for five minutes. And He helps me--and that five minutes stretches much longer. God is good.

It's completely backward from the old adage FORGIVE AND FORGET. Sometimes, frankly, that feels impossible. Instead, maybe it's more doable to FORGET AND FORGIVE.

Because either way, the goal of forgiveness is accomplished.

And forgetting can sometimes be the easiest thing in the world.

Yikes! Be Patient in Affliction...Or Else

When my kids are being little pills, my husband often hangs this nebulous threat over them, "Kids! You'd better stop it or RELSE." It's an aberration of the word else, obviously. The kids will sometimes ask, "What's relse this time?" And then he thinks up some random consequence to their bad behavior, and generally he gets results.


Smart dad, right?


But as I've been dealing with a negative situation over the past several months (years if I think about it), I have been trying to be patient with the, for lack of a better word, affliction. One day a couple of weeks ago, I was really digging into the Book of Mormon, looking for ways to help me handle things, and I came across a couple of verses that simultaneously comforted and scared me.


That's possible, right? Comforting and scaring? At the same time? Well, apparently it's possible.


Here's the verse from Alma chapter 34.

 40 And now my beloved brethren, I would exhort you to have patience, and that ye bear with all manner of afflictions; that ye do not revile against those who do cast you out because of your exceeding poverty, lest ye become sinners like unto them;

 41 But that ye have patience, and bear with those afflictions, with a firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions.

Did you see that? There's  RELSE in there. A big one.

At first glance, the RELSE looks like "They're sinners and you're not because you're the afflicted one and therefore innocent and spotless." But I'm no dummy. I know I'm not some kind of perfect, sinless martyr. I've got challenges of my own in the way of spiritual growth.

No, I think the "warning relse" here is more specific. And maybe I'm just reading this wrong, but it sounds like "lest ye become sinners LIKE UNTO them." So, wait. Is that really saying that when I'm impatient through persecution, there's a good chance I'll become a cranky old persecutor just like the person I'm being impatient with through their infliction of affliction upon me?

Kinda what that sounds like.

So, yikes-a. Time to suck it up, quit my whining, and be patient through this trial, right? Because more than anything, I want to be kind and loving and ... not be out there heaping persecution on my brother's head.

So I'd better quit it...or RELSE.