No Scars Remain

Today I listened to President Packer’s last conference talk before he passed away. In it he made what is perhaps his most famous statement about the purpose of the Church: “Over the years I have frequently taught an important principle: the end of all activity in the Church is to see that a man and a woman with their children are happy at home, sealed together for time and for all eternity.” He showed in his talk how this had become a reality for his own family as he spoke of his own wife: “When it comes to my wife, the mother of our children, I am without words. The feeling is so deep and the gratitude so powerful that I am left almost without expression. The greatest reward we have received in this life, and the life to come, is our children and our grandchildren. Toward the end of our mortal days together, I am grateful for each moment I am with her side by side and for the promise the Lord has given that there will be no end.” His expression of love is indeed an indication of “the devotion and comfort of longtime married love” and “mature love [that] has a bliss not even imagined by newlyweds.” President Packer’s was a life devoted to the Lord and to the principles of the family proclamation—I hope that in my own marriage at the end of our lives our own expressions of devotion will be the same.

            President Packer also said this about repentance in that talk: “Unlike the case of our mortal bodies, when the repentance process is complete, no scars remain because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The promise is: ‘Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more’ (D&C 58:42).” He continued, “The Atonement, which can reclaim each one of us, bears no scars. That means that no matter what we have done or where we have been or how something happened, if we truly repent, He has promised that He would atone. And when He atoned, that settled that. There are so many of us who are thrashing around, as it were, with feelings of guilt, not knowing quite how to escape. You escape by accepting the Atonement of Christ, and all that was heartache can turn to beauty and love and eternity.” I love his final statement spoken in conference: “The Atonement is individual, and if you have something that is bothering you—sometimes so long ago you can hardly remember it—put the Atonement to work. It will clean it up, and you, as does He, will remember your sins no more.” I have thought often of the idea of remembering our sins no more—it is sometimes so hard to move past the guilt and shame we feel at past mistakes. Can we really forget them as President Packer suggests? I think the words of Alma to his son Helaman might help us understand how this applies to us. As Alma describe the pain he felt because of his sins, he said this: “I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins. Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell…. As I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.” He then had a turning point and cried out, “O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.” And then he gave us I think the key: “And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more” (Alma 36:13-19). It’s not that he could not remember his sins—he obviously did because he described them to his son—but with complete repentance and the power of the Savior he could remember the pains no more. He was no longer harrowed up by the memory, even if the memory still existed of what had happened. So perhaps that is how it will be for us; we may not actually forget those things we have done wrong, but through the power of Jesus Christ we can forget the pain associated with them and no longer feel guilt because of them. We can find permanent peace through the Savior because we have been cleansed through His atonement.