Through Christ’s Atonement, we can remember our past without letting it define who we are.
I sometimes wonder if I’ve been truly forgiven. Even after praying, repenting, and striving to apply the Savior’s Atonement, I still feel weighed down by guilt. I know Christ can forgive others—even me—but that truth doesn’t always reach my heart. Often, I forget that forgiveness also means forgiving myself.
The same Atonement of Jesus Christ that allows us to be forgiven by God and enables us to forgive others also empowers us to extend that grace inward. As Elder D. Chad Richardson wrote in the article “Forgiving Oneself,” “When we turn to our Savior, He can heal us not only of the sin but also of the self-recrimination and the constant mental replaying of our sins or obsessing over them.” Christ’s mercy is an infinite gift, covering every single part of the repentance and healing process. Part of that healing involves learning how to see our past through his grace rather than through guilt.
Photo by Kiril Gruev
The familiar phrase “forgive and forget” takes on a new meaning in light of God’s mercy and his promise to “remember [our sins] no more” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:42). Yet we, as mortals, retain memory of our mistakes—not as punishment, but as protection. Remembering past mistakes reminds us how far we’ve come and helps us make better decisions in the future. In this spiritual sense, forgetting means refusing to let the past define us.
Elder Richardson illustrates this with the story of William W. Phelps, once a close friend of Joseph Smith who later turned against him and even signed an affidavit that contributed to the Prophet’s imprisonment in Liberty Jail. A year later, the remorseful Phelps wrote to Smith seeking forgiveness, which the Prophet freely gave.
Phelps went on to pen many beloved hymns, including his tribute to Joseph Smith, “Praise to the Man.” One line declares, “Traitors and tyrants now fight him in vain.” How could Phelps write those words, knowing he had been a traitor? Elder Richardson observes, “I realized not only that Brother Phelps was no longer a traitor but also that he must have come to no longer see himself as one.”
Just like William W. Phelps, we can choose to forgive ourselves and find strength in the truth that today we are not who we were yesterday. Remaining in a cycle of shame and self-loathing is not a part of the repentance process. Christ offers mercy and healing and invites us to come to him with “a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (Doctrine and Covenants 59:8). We can accept his grace and move forward, exercising enough faith to trust that his mercy is greater than our mistakes—even when they remain in our memory.
Read more about the process of self-forgiveness in the article “Forgiving Oneself” by Elder D. Chad Richardson.
Source: Ensign
—Elizabeth Reynolds, Latter-day Saint Insights
FEATURE IMAGE BY VLADIMIR SRAJBER
Find more insights
To learn more about the hope that can be found in forgiveness, read the general conference address “Have I Truly Been Forgiven?” by Elder K. Brett Nattress.
To gain more insight about the power of looking forward in faith, read or listen to Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s BYU speech “Remember Lot’s Wife.”