Day 205 or 365 days of Solace: To Forgive and Be Forgiven

I laughed at the punchline of this joke today:

"before you become too critical of lawyers listen to the words of my good friend Jim Gordon: “It is true that some lawyers are dishonest, arrogant, greedy, venal, amoral, ruthless buckets of toxic slime. On the other hand, it is unfair to judge the entire profession by a few hundred thousand bad apples.” "

While that joke is funny, I most appreciated this lawyer James R. Rasband's, insights on Jesus Christ and the atonement.** I never used to be very good about forgiving people. I held onto wounds and hurts and I could not let things go. I am sure I have room for improvement, but the last few years (and especially this year), I have learned a LOT about forgiveness. Some of those lessons have been tremendously painful, but as strange as it sounds, I have learned so much in the process.

(Near the end he even talks about whether or not it's alright for Christians to take matters to court (quite interesting))

Feeling forgiveness for others, or being truly forgiven is one of the sweetest experiences on earth because it means that the flow of God's pure love has room in your heart and mind. 

I compare forgiveness to being released from a dark-celled prison sentence, and being set free in a bright beautiful garden of Eden!

I have read/listened to many speakers about forgiveness, and if you would like recommendations I will gladly give them to you if you request, but for now I hope you will take the time to listen to a few reminders on the topic. I firmly believe that forgiveness is a skill that every truly happy person has learned some degree of! IF you want to be Happy you know what to do....Forgive!

I like another perspective of forgiveness he covers. Something to think about! Excerpt below:

"But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. [Matthew 6:14–15]"

"That our own forgivenss should be conditioned on forgiving others can be a hard doctrine, particularly if the sin against us is horribly wrong and out of all proportion to any harm we’ve ever committed. Even harder, the Lord has indicated in modern revelation that “he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin” (D&C 64:9).

This is a very strong statement: if we refuse to forgive, there remaineth in us the greater sin. How can this be? As I hope to explain, our salvation is conditioned on forgiving others because when we refuse to forgive, what we are really saying is that we reject, or don’t quite trust, the Atonement. And it is our acceptance of the Atonement that ultimately saves us."

"Why is it that we sometimes have trouble accepting the Atonement as recompense for the harms we suffer at others’ hands? My experience is that we can sometimes forget that the Atonement has two sides. Usually, when we think about the Atonement we focus on how mercy can satisfy the demands that justice would impose upon us.4 We are typically quicker to accept the idea that when we sin and make mistakes the Atonement is available to pay our debts."

"Forgiveness requires us to consider the other side of the Atonement—a side that we don’t think about

as often but that is equally critical. That side is the Atonement’s power to satisfy our demands of justice against others, to fulfill our rights to restitution and being made whole. We often don’t quite see how the Atonement satisfies our own demands for justice. Yet it does so. It heals us not only from the guilt we suffer when we sin, but it also heals us from the sins and hurts of others."

With the help of God, and through the power of Christ's perfect atonement ALL forgiveness is possible.

Christine