Today in church it seemed every meeting was chalk full of wisdom and knowledge I needed imparted onto me. The one that spoke loudest to me was the lesson in Relief Society about forgiveness. There are several people in my life who I haven't addressed forgiveness with; some that I should and want to forgive willingly, and some who I don't want to forgive but feel compelled to do so simply out of obedience to The Lord.
One person I've felt a genuine desire to forgive is my own father. He destroyed any semblance of a loving, cohesive father/daughter relationship growing up. To forgive him requires a couple things. First, I need to quit visiting the past. In all truth doing so means I'm harboring that pain. Second, I need to work toward having a relationship with him as two adults. Emotions make it far more complex and entangled than it sounds, but I want to get there. To that place where I feel the peace associated with true forgiveness.
A pair that I part have a true desire to forgive, part feel compelled out of obedience is my sister's in-laws. Sounds funny that I'd have any contentious feelings toward them, but I do for things that happened in the past. I'm working to get there; to finish crossing the bridge from having to, to wanting to.
Another pair are some women I used to be friends with. I have no desire to forgive them other than to obey my Heavenly Father. The wounds are deep and I feel righteous in my anger. I don't presently have the humility to reach out, but know that I must. Neither were raised in the Christian way I was, so these principles weren't taught to them. They know the world's way, not His way. What the catch there is for me is they're less accountable than I because I do know better through the teachings of the gospel. Dang it! I hate being so accountable sometimes!
I remember a while back I was in my bishop's office repenting of some sins in my past. I told him that even though the sins I was repenting of were years and years old, I had felt so strongly that I needed to address them in order to progress in my life spiritually the way that I, and my HF, wanted me to. He likened sin unto large rocks in a river. You see the largest, most obvious stones first. They're huge, jutting out of the water, and the ones that demand your attention. As the river lowers you see more stones, smaller stones, all the way down until you finally get to the pebbles and sediment that rests on the river bed. That's the refiner's fire. He compels us to first address the largest stones, or sins, then he lowers the river to reveal the next stones, and then the next until you finally reach that fine sediment. For me, personally, I feel like I still have SO much work to do. I am motivated however by His forgiveness toward me. What would I do without it? I'd be damned, with no hope for my soul. I depend on His mercy and grace to learn by my mistakes, be forgiven of them and be allowed to move forward. I MUST do the same towards others.
