Repentance for the Less Guilty

I listened to a talk by Terry Warner yesterday about forgiveness.  He told a story about a woman who had suffered for many years because of abuse inflicted at the hand of her father as a child.  She felt despair, and despite her efforts visiting numerous professionals, nothing had really helped to bring light into her life.  Brother Warner told how she visited him asking for help and he asked her if she had been able to forgive her father.  She said she thought so but wasn’t really sure because of the continued feelings that she had.  He then asked her what I found to be an astonishing question: “Have you asked for forgiveness for your hard feelings for your father?”  Something seems wrong about that question when you think about it in terms of comparing sins; we naturally feel that the sins her father committed were orders of magnitude more serious and terrible than her sins of having some hard feelings in her heart towards the one who abused her.  She was far less guilty we might say.  But the Lord isn’t interested in us comparing sins; He wants to purify all of us through the power of His atonement.  Brother Warner told how this woman went home, wrote a letter asking for forgiveness of his father, and for the first time she could remember she felt light and joy start to come back into her life.  What was holding her back was needing forgiveness for herself. 

               This story I think has a parallel in the Book of Mormon.  Nephi suffered terribly at the hands of his brothers who tried to kill him on numerous occasions, tying him up more than once for long periods of time, and also threatening to kill his father.  Nephi surely made mistakes in his life, and our natural man tendency to compare Nephi to his brother would suggest that Nephi had no reason to repent or seek forgiveness—all culpability belonged to his brothers.  And yet, in Nephi’s psalm we see that Nephi was struggling precisely because he needed forgiveness of his hard feelings towards his brothers.  He wrote as he poured out his soul: “And why should I yield to sin, because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul? Why am I angry because of mine enemy?” (v27)  It was his own sins of becoming angry with his brothers that were holding him back.  It didn’t matter that comparatively his sins of anger paled in comparison with his brothers’ sins of attempted murder—Nephi couldn’t have peace until he received forgiveness of his own sins.  He pled with the Lord for exactly that: “O Lord, wilt thou redeem my soul? Wilt thou deliver me out of the hands of mine enemies? Wilt thou make me that I may shake at the appearance of sin?  May the gates of hell be shut continually before me, because that my heart is broken and my spirit is contrite!” (v31-32)  Nephi needed forgiveness and purification and a change of heart, and he wasn’t concerned about the fact that his brothers may have needed it more; the Lord made no exceptions when He said in this generation, “For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” (D&C 1:31).  Perhaps what this story from Brother Warner and Nephi’s experience teach us is that the way to peace is repentance and forgiveness.  Neither story justifies the more heinous actions performed by the woman’s father and Nephi’s brothers; instead they simply illustrate that for our own peace we need to forgive and be forgiven.  Perhaps Paul said it best when he wrote to the Colossians, “   Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye….  And let the peace of God rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:13, 15).