Forgiveness, Gratitude, and a Whole Lot of Learning

Recently I had the experience where I needed to forgive someone.

I tend to get hurt very easily. I try my hardest and sometimes it isn’t enough for the people around me. Sometimes….they make it known a little too bluntly.

So my feather’s get ruffled and all I can think about it how I was “wronged.”

I love venting but my husband made it known to me that I tend to vent a little too much, to too many people, and I bring down the names of those around me so I feel justified.

I recognize my weakness and am working on it.

It is hard sometimes when someone hurts our feelings. I go back to all silly girl bullying in middle school and I get that pit in my stomach feeling where all of a sudden no one likes you and you don’t know what you did wrong.

So we went to sacrament today and I decided that I needed to practice what I have taught in lessons, talks, and life. Forgiveness.

A lot of it is directed at us needing forgiveness, but what always sticks out to me when I study the doctrine is the need to forgive others.

Probably because it is something that is a bit of a struggle for me.

Well I knew I needed to forgive this person. I knew that me incessantly talking about it would not help one bit. So (besides the need of context in this post) I am done.

I believe in an active partaking of the sacrament. Sometimes I think about the day I was baptized and try to revive that pure feeling within, sometimes I think about the beauty of the atonement and the Savior, sometimes I truly seek forgiveness for my shortcomings. Today I sought to learn to forgive others.

It is not an easy thing, but I think in remembering the mercy of the Lord in forgiving us. We need to remember to be equally forgiving. We need to not only recognize our weaknesses, but the weaknesses of those around us as well. Especially those that hurt us.

Now we hope that they will strengthen those weakness as we are all told to do, but we do not know their time line. We do not know the struggles of their heart. So we have to think of how much the Savior loves and cares for them and how He wants us to love them just as much.

So I am grateful for the lessons I get to learn from the gospel. I am grateful for the experiences Heavenly Father gives me. They hurt, sometimes more than I can seem to bear, but if we take them with the perspective of Heavenly Father trying to teach us, mold us into something far more beautiful than we could have ever imagined, we will become what He sees in us.

That is the beauty of the gospel. It is what keeps me learning, growing stronger and as a result, happier.