The Power of Change

It’s been a thoughtful day and evening. There wasn’t anything too groundbreaking about today—I spent it translating more of the curriculum into English. But as I was going, and especially this afternoon and evening, I’ve been thinking a lot about a few things that have been on my mind over the past few weeks. A few weeks ago, I thought about a few people I hadn’t treated with the respect they deserved back in high school and right after it, before my mission. These were things that I felt that I had dealt with already and remembered trying to make compensation for and leave behind years ago, but for some reason they just weren’t leaving my mind. Today after work, I was studying some church articles and conference talks, and I felt a prompting that I’ve felt several times over the past several weeks—that I needed to contact these people again and sincerely apologize to them for the way I had treated them.

I hadn’t followed through on the prompting yet because I truly remembered having dealt with all of that already, and a part of me felt like I had already put all that behind me, and so I was wondering what it was that was left unresolved. This has been bothering me for several weeks, and it’s reopened more so than I think I ever felt at the time the remorse I feel for treating these people I love in the wrongful way that I did. As I’ve thought about it, I think therein lies my answer—if there’s anything that was still unresolved about all this, it was that I hadn’t really let the full weight of my bad treatment settle in on me at the time. I hadn’t really fully considered the feelings I had hurt and the sorrow I had caused—in my more immature spiritual state back then, I was more worried with getting the whole repentance thing over with than actually paying full penance for what I had done. And I think these last few weeks have given me a new vision in that sense—they’ve helped me to much more fully realize the respect that I should give to all people, because I’ve felt more deeply the sorrow of not having done so. They’ve given me a new vision of the eternal worth and preciousness of the people I’d hurt, as I realized more fully the impact of my actions on them. In general, they’ve helped me change into what I hope is a better, more loving, more respectful, more Christlike man.

Because really, at its heart, that is what repentance is for—a means to make us better people. A means for us to learn from our mistakes and grow as eternal individuals, a teeny step closer to our full potential. Tonight I wrote emails to these people I had hurt, and while doing so, more names started coming to mind of others that I had treated badly, and the list of emails to write kept growing longer. But at the end of the evening, I felt peace—I felt peace having sincerely told so many of my old friends (and in some cases almost lost friends) how much I loved them and how sorry I was that I had treated them with less than the respect they deserve. I felt peace knowing that I had sincerely treated a few more of God’s children according to their eternal worth. This, to me, is the glory of repentance—so many people talk about repentance and sin in the Church as something which pins you down with guilt, which feels like a chain around your neck. And I can understand how some people might interpret things that way. But to me, repentance is the one thing that has given me the most hope and joy and love in my life—it is the facilitator that has helped me overcome my mistakes and become bit by bit more of the man that I hope to be. It is what makes it so that my life isn’t a dreary, hopeless existence. It, and the sacrifice of Christ that has made it possible, is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given. I know that the power of change available through repentance is real—I know because I’ve felt it. I know because I’m feeling it right now. I know that Jesus Christ is real, and that He is my Savior, and that through Him I can become clean and more like Him. I feel the truth of that in my heart.