Tammy Stafford taught our lesson on Sunday, from the Spencer W. Kimball manual, lesson #9: Forgiving Others with All Our Hearts. There are so many dimensions to forgiveness, she said. Imperfection causes conflict. A person causes hurt to another, small or large, intentional or accidental. The victim of the hurt can retaliate in anger, thereby hurting the original perpetrator. We can hurt ourselves. As she was preparing to teach the lesson, Tammy felt overwhelmed by the diversity of the sisters she would be presenting to, and wondered how she could present a lesson that would be suitable for all of us. She had someone read quote #1: "I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men" (D&C 64:10).
Tammy said that this scripture answered her concerns...we are required to forgive all men, regardless of the size of the offense or any other factor. There are no qualifiers in this scripture. Someone else read quote #2: "When they have repented and come on their knees to ask forgiveness, most of us can forgive, but the Lord has required that we shall forgive even if they do not repent nor ask forgiveness of us..." (SWK 97). We have to forgive even the unrepentant. The D&C scripture focuses on the victim, the hurt person. Ours is a god of love, and his commandments are love-based. The commandment to forgive all men is for our spiritual health and progress. Tammy wrote on the board: "Forgiveness: Why? What? How?" She said that what we had just discussed was the Why.
Now to the What. What happens in our mind when we forgive? M. said we can't forget entirely, but we can cast our burden on Christ and find peace. Tammy said we give up our claim to justice. Our anger is justified, but God wants us to turn it over to him. Quote #4: "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19). The act of turning justice over to the Lord is huge and hard, but being right is not the issue. We need to be unburdened from the anger and hate and give vengeance to God. L. said that when we forgive others, we are, in effect, trading in our own sins. We can forgive, but we don't have to trust that person again. If we want to be forgiven for our sins, we can't say that the Savior's atonement doesn't count for another. S. said that forgiveness and repentance go together because we often need to repent of the anger we feel after someone has hurt us. Another sister said that we need to remember that as much as some people test our patience, we are surely testing someone else's patience. Tammy remembered a time when someone asked her if maternal guilt had set in yet. She answered, "No, I'm a thorn in their side that God gave them." P. asked if we need to continue spending time with someone after they've hurt us. T. said that separation from someone who's hurt you can be a blessing to them. Tammy said that forgiving someone is not the same as saying that the hurt is okay. It also does not necessarily mean becoming a friend with this person. Forgiveness is refocusing--changing the focus of our heart from the hurt or the hurter to the people we love, our work, et cetera. We become free. Someone on a television program said that we give power to what we focus on. S. said that forgiveness is about having a clean heart. L. said that if the hurt someone has done against you is a crime, you can forgive them and still press charges. T. said that to remove someone from committing the crime again is a service to them. N. said the benefit of refocusing is that it becomes easier to forget the hurt.
How do we forgive? M. said that Christ has already borne the burden of the hurt, so why are we holding on to it too? What a waste of his sacrifice. Tammy invited her mother, Lea, to share a personal experience with forgiveness. Lea was in the temple, and saw someone that had hurt people she loved. She felt angry, and prayed that the Lord would help her to stop feeling that way...she didn't want to have those feelings in the temple. The feelings left. The thought came to her that she was not responsible for this person and the things he had done, and she should not allow his actions to remove her peace. She learned two things from this experience: 1) painful feelings are to remain with the perpetrator; 2) forgiveness is a gift of the atonement. L. told of her experience growing up Catholic, and how much it helped her as a young woman to be able to light a candle when she needed to get rid of any bad feelings she was having. She said that even today, it helps her to do something concrete like this when she needs to let go of something. Quote #5: "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ" (Moroni 7:48). We can give the hurt to God and he can give us peace.
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I like this topic. I think forgiveness can be better implemented when we know more about all it's facets. I know that I've had some instances like Tammy pointed out: to forgive someone but not necessarily be their friend/spend time with them.
I think we sometimes feel guilty about this, that we should forgive and then be required to like everyone, or be around everyone, etc. But it's not the case. Sometimes we can remain in a forgiveness state because we ARE able to separate the forgiveness from the other obligations we might impose on ourselves.
In my family there is a member of it who has been abusive to other people. This principle of forgiveness is clear to me because of the complicated relationship I have with this person. I truly have forgiven them, and when new anger comes up, I truly try to forgive them for those things also, as they come up. But my relationship is not one of calling on the phone, hanging out, confiding in, or even approving of or liking. So I keep the forgiveness in check, and take care of myself otherwise in the most self-reliant way I can.
I know that most people won't have such an extreme example, but it still can address those times when we may feel we aren't fully forgiving unless we're best friends with those who we are upset with. And if we aren't sure what to do in our individual situations, then we always have Heavenly Father, don't we?
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