Running Over

Yesterday we were sitting on the couch and my little girl, not quite two years old, was standing next to us and got frustrated about something with my wife (I’m not sure what it was) and threw a toy at her. But then she proceeded to immediately climb up on the couch to be with her mom. We laughed at this, and as I thought about it, it reminded me how quick children are to forgive and forget. The younger they are, the less time they hold grudges. I see this in my children who are a little bit older who will sometimes hit or scratch each other, sending one of them screaming and running to Mom or Dad. But then just minutes later they are happily playing together as if nothing ever happened. I’m seeing now, though, that my oldest children—9 and 11—are usually no longer that quick to forgive and forget. They have a much harder time letting go of hurt feelings and forgiving one another than their younger siblings. And that trend seems to generally continue up through us adults: we can sometimes hold on to hurt feelings for years as we struggle to forgive one another. This is perhaps one of the reasons that the Lord has asked us to be like little children: we need to learn to forgive and forget as quickly as they do.

               One of my favorite verses about forgiveness is this statement from the Savior in Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount: “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:37-38). We should give overflowing forgiveness, not measured and constrained. This idea is captured powerfully in a poem by Marguerite Stewart as quoted by Madison Sowell who introduced the poem this way: “The poem, written in the first person, features an unnamed wife who answers her door to find a young woman in shame and seeking flour, which symbolizes forgiveness, to make bread.” Here is the poem:

                                          When I went to the door, at the whisper of knocking,

I saw Simeon Gantner’s daughter, Kathleen, standing

There, in her shawl and her shame, sent to ask

“Forgiveness Flour” for her bread. “Forgiveness Flour,”

We call it in our corner. If one has erred, one

Is sent to ask for flour of his neighbors. If they loan it

To him, that means he can stay, but if they refuse, he had

Best take himself off. I looked at Kathleen . . .

What a jewel of a daughter, though not much like her

Father, more’s the pity. “I’ll give you flour,” I

Said, and went to measure it. Measuring was the rub.

If I gave too much, neighbors would think I made sin

Easy, but if I gave too little, they would label me

“Close.” While I stood measuring, Joel, my husband

Came in from the mill, a great bag of flour on his

Shoulder, and seeing her there, shrinking in the

Doorway, he tossed the bag at her feet. “Here, take

All of it.” And so she had flour for many loaves,

While I stood measuring.

Most of us are like the woman in that we “measure” out our forgiveness, trying not to give too much or be too generous with it. But the Savior has asked us “forgive all men,” and we should seek to offer the whole bag of flour, to give it “running over” and in abundance (Doctrine and Covenants 64:10). Of course there are times when we must reprove “with sharpness” as the Holy Ghost directs, but even then we are to afterwards show “an increase of love” towards the person. As the Savior put it elsewhere, “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). Ultimately we are all like the man who owed his king ten thousand talents. When he begged for mercy, “The lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt” (Matthew 18:27). When we plead for mercy from the Lord, He too forgives us our innumerable sins, but if like the man in this story we can’t go and do likewise to others then we will remain condemned before God. Each day we should seek to freely forgive those around us, forgetting hurt feelings as quickly as little children and offering all the forgiveness flour we have.