“Come In So I Can Forgive You”

Both my boys were a bit crazy during church on Sunday, so when we got home we sent them to their room for some quiet time…they got really hyper, started wrestling and were not being quiet. So again my husband went in asked them to please be quiet because the baby was sleeping, probably yelled a bit because he was so frustrated and walked out. Cowboy came out a bit later and asked for some tape because he had written his dad a note and wanted him to come read it on the door. This is what it said…

{Sorry Dad, you can come in now so I can forgive you!}

Reading this note made me think about how hard asking for forgiveness is, and also how hard it is to forgive others.  It’s amazing to me how quickly kids forgive and forget, but also how quickly they apologize and run around as best friends never even thinking about what happened. My son knows he needs to apologize, but that he also needs to forgive.  My husband was a bit frustrated by the note because he did not feel like he needed to be forgiven. He felt like his actions of getting mad at my boys was justifiable because they had been naughty. Why is it we as adults struggle to say sorry and to forgive others? As an adult both seem really hard. Saying sorry is admitting you did something wrong and that is not an easy thing to do. Who wants to admit they did something wrong? We dwell on what the other person did and our heart stays hard and we struggle to forgive. Or if we did something wrong, we struggle to say we are sorry because we feel justified in our action. Both feelings are wrong. But it is one of the hardest things in the world to overcome.

A while ago I had a hard time forgiving someone. I felt frustrated and angry and mad about what this person had said and done. I was stubborn and didn’t want to forgive them. I hadn’t done anything. But I did harbor frustrated and angry feelings inside, which is not good.  One day I felt sick of feeling this way I had to pray hard that I would be able to forgive this person. I thought about why this person had said and done these things and I had some realizations about the situation. Sure there are days that I see this person and remember, but my heart is a lot softer toward them and my anger is gone. It was not easy, but feeling that peace inside is a lot better than harboring anger inside!

Here are some amazing quotes that I found about repentance (which to me is the ultimate “Sorry”) and forgiving others..

“Is there someone in your life who perhaps needs forgiveness? Is there someone in your home, someone in your family, someone in your neighborhood who has done an unjust or an unkind or an unchristian thing? All of us are guilty of such transgressions, so there surely must be someone who yet needs your forgiveness.” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Amazed at the Love Jesus Offers Me,” New Era, Dec. 2008, 6)

"As we consider the unity required for Zion to flourish, we should ask ourselves if we have overcome jarrings, contentions, envyings, and strifes (see D&C 101:6). Are we individually and as a people free from strife and contention and united ‘according to the union required by the law of the celestial kingdom’? (D&C 105:4). Forgiveness of one another is essential to this unity. Jesus said, ‘I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men’ (D&C 64:10). (D. Todd Christofferson, "Come to Zion," Ensign, Nov. 2008, 38)

"It remains . . . for you and me to both seek and tender [the Savior’s] forgiveness—to both repent and to extend charity to others—which enables us to pass through the door the Savior holds open, thus to cross the threshold from this life into exaltation. Today is the day to forgive others their trespasses, secure in the knowledge that the Lord will thus forgive ours. As Luke significantly recorded, ‘Be ye therefore merciful’ (Luke 6:36; emphasis added). Perfection may elude us here, but we can be merciful. And in the end, repenting and forgiving are among God’s chief requirements of us." (Lance B. Wickman, "Today," Ensign, May 2008, 105)

If we want to become a “Zion People” we need to forgive and repent (say sorry to others and also to God) It is required of us to forgive all men. This is not an easy task, but it needs to be done.