53. Forgiving and forgetting

I believe I learned something about myself this morning (something that I need to change for the better). We were reading the newspaper as is our custom, and I was reading the A section with main news. Wayne handed me the sports section, which I rarely read (almost never!) and said "Let's trade!" I knew that he knew I didn't want to read the sports section! I gave the A section to him, but made a sarcastic remark. I immediately didn't feel at peace, and realized I was not right. I realized I had taken offence over something that wasn't meant that way. I believe sarcasm can be very destructive to relationships!  (I did apologize!)

Then the talk during the Tabernacle Choir broadcast told about "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, and the story of Scrooge. He said that it is a classic story of how people can and do change for the better. He mentioned that we call a stingy person a "Scrooge", and that even in the dictionary it is defined like that. He said we don't remember that Ebenezer Scrooge did change, and became a most kind, beloved, and giving person. Often we remember the kind of person someone was, and not the better person they have become. We should forgive and forget things about people when they have done something in the past, but have changed so much for the better. (That was the main message, but it was said much more eloquently!)

Just before the New Year I want to analyze my feelings about people, probably one or two in particular, and to recognize how they have become a much better person, and "forgive and forget."

 It brings to mind the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants section 64, parts of verses 7, 9 and 10:

"I, the Lord, forgive sins unto those who confess their sins before me and ask forgiveness, who have not sinned unto death. .......................Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses, standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. ................I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men."

To finish this entry, I want to include a quote by President Joseph Fielding Smith, whose teachings we will be studying this coming year:

QUOTE OF THE DAY: (from Latter Day Light)


Joseph Fielding Smith

"There isn't one of us I take it that hasn't done something wrong and then been sorry and wished we hadn't. Then our consciences strike us and we have been very, very miserable. Have you gone through that experience? I have. . . . But here we have the Son of God carrying the burden of my transgressions and your transgressions. . . .

"His greatest torment was not the nails in his hands or in his feet, as bad as they were, but the torment of mind in some way that is not clear to me. But he carried the burden--our burden. I added something to it; so did you. So did everybody else. He took it upon himself to pay the price that I might escape-that you might escape-the punishment on the conditions that we will receive his gospel and be true and faithful in it.

"Now that's what I'm trying to think about. That's what I'm remembering" (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith, p. 94-103).