Ok... so, in seminary today at my school, we had this lesson on forgiveness...
Basically, we talked about the "Natural Man" instincts when of when we're offended or hurt in some way or other. For example, talking about the early saints in Missouri, when they were so deeply persecuted by the mobs. Being tarred and feathered and beaten and all that stuff... Basically almost the worst thing any human could do to another. If anyone can come up with something worse, I really don't want to know because I'm kind of a squeamish wimp. But anyway, the saints would have had EVERY reason to be bitter and want to get revenge on their persecutors, but they didn't. They were told not to. Instead, they were told to be patient, that all their trials would be for their good in the end, and they needed to trust God and whatnot.
So, while we were having this lesson, the ONLY thing/person I was thinking of was that for some reason, I had this feeling like I need to forgive "Larry"'s dad... I mean, sure, he hasn't directly done anything to deliberately hurt ME, but I've been hurt because of things he's done, and I guess my hurt has been turning to hate. My anguish has been turning to anger.
To add to it, my teacher showed us some videos. One was of Pres. Hinkley talking about a lady who had been assaulted by a teenage boy who threw a 20 lb turkey out of his car and it smashed through her windshield, breaking her face pretty much to smitherines. Instead of being bitter about it, she pried the lawyers and attorneys for information about his home life, how he had been raised and such, and she forgave him in front of an open court hearing. He came to her and apologized for what he did, and she said "It's ok, I just want to help you make your life the best it can be"
The next video was a story about an Amish community who had a milkman come by in a big pickup truck to get the milk collected from their dairy farms. One day, the milkman like, went insane and invaded the Amish school, dismissed the teachers and boy students, but tied up 10 little girls and shot all of them, killing half of them. The Amish community was indeed, deeply hurt but they weren't bitter at all! The next few days, the families of the murdered girls went to visit the family of the crazy milkman to console them. Most of the mourners at the milkman's funeral were members of the Amish community. In return, they invited the milkman's family to attend the services for the murdered girls. Talk about long-suffering.
The two phrases that won't leave my mind are "hate to hurt" and "anger to anguish." It almost bothers me because I don't WANT to have to just suffer through stuff like that and not be able to DO anything about it! I hate the idea! Again, going back to "Larry"'s dad, I'm gonna have to learn to forgive him and just deal with feeling like I'm gonna implode from how badly my soul hurts. That's what I have to do. I got the distinct feeling/prompting that that's what I need to do, and I don't like it, but I'm not gonna refuse because I know that what it says in D&C 64 is true, that "he who forgiveth not his brother, there lies in him the greater sin"...
Ugh...
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