Pride and Forgiveness

I woke up this morning much earlier than I needed to. That has been the unfortunate pattern as of late. My friends and leaders say this is normal and that it shall pass with time. Most times I wake up in a cold sweat and panicking. This morning I woke from a dream that was so vivid that I was immediately wracked with a sense of guilt for a past transgression. That has led me to write about the lesson in humility and forgiveness that I am learning. It should go without saying that I am "learning" these lessons, because I doubt any of these qualities, that we should be striving for, are of a nature that can be perfectly attained in this life. We can only do our best to learn the lessons one day at a time, slowly but surely building upon the lessons learned from yesterday.
I feel I should admit one of my greatest weaknesses. That weakness is Pride. I don't know how it started, but from as far back as I can remember, I have been a prideful person. Yes, from time to time, I could recognize my own "nothingness" and experience bouts of blessings that come from being a truly humble person. However, no matter how hard the Lord has tried, I have remained steadfast in my own pride. Ironic that I should be so prideful while having such a low self-worth or level of self-esteem. I have never looked at myself as being "better than others" but have always denied any help in any situation, even if I had no idea how I would complete the task at hand without help. I would often fight my own battles, spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally, all on my own while denying the need for help. This pride was also evident in my tendency to be over-sensitive and easily offended. At the slightest breeze, my happy demeanor could be changed to anger or frustration because of a word or phrase offered by someone around me. I could take offense to nearly anything. Which is why when someone truly said or did something that was offensive to me directly, there would be no forgiveness. I would "leave that up to the Lord" and I would ostracize or even cast off the individual instead of offering forgiveness. I always felt justified in my anger, whether great or small, all due to my pride.
An experience I had lately was my turning point in forgiveness. I am still not ready to go into great detail as to my personal situation so I will suffice it to say that I had reached a point where my pride, and incapability to forgive had cost me the most precious joys and blessings in my life. I sat with our church's missionaries sobbing and trying to explain to them why I had been justified in my anger, and why I just could not forgive the individual that had wronged me.
I will simply say that a close relative had used a long-buried past transgression against me in an attempt to blackmail my family. This was unacceptable to me, and I had told this individual that they were dead to me and they would never be hearing/seeing me again. This was the typical reaction towards those who had wronged me in the past. In my eyes, they had done a wrong so great that truly ONLY God could and should forgive them. I held tightly to the age old adage of "I will forgive but never forget." In my pride I had actually convinced myself that I had forgiven this individual, but was simply remembering the hurt. This obviously was not true and the anger for this person had only grown the longer it festered in my heart.
Flash forward a few months. By this time, my resentment and anger for this person was so great that I had grown to know I had not forgiven this person, and that I may not be able to ever, even if I wanted to. I was sobbing that day in the living room of my home. I had lost my dearest treasure because of my pride. After explaining this to the missionaries, they offered to give me a blessing of comfort and counsel. I accepted. As they placed their hands upon my head and offered a blessing in the name of Jesus Christ, they spoke the words which Heavenly Father had prompted them to say to me. This allowed the spirit, which had been blocked from piercing my heart for so long, to enter into my heart and teach me one of the most valuable truths I have learned in my life. "Brett, you can either have your pride, or you can be happy." It was simple. It was sweet. The spirit pierced my heart and forced me to feel that this was true. I know this may be irreverent to say, but I don't recall any of the words offered in that blessing. In fact, I was eager for the blessing to be over. I was craving the chance to forgive and have this burden lifted from my shoulders. I wrote this person an email, asking for the opportunity to start laying the foundation of forgiveness. In hind-sight, this email still contained elements of my pride, such as stating as a reminder to the person as to what they did was wrong and they still needed to repent of their misdeeds, but the overall message I felt was that I had offered my forgiveness as well. I instantly felt a sizable part of the weight lifted from my spirit as I hit send.
I would love to be able to say that this has a happy ending. That my email was successful in repairing the hurt and damage that not only was done to me, but what my pride had done to others. This was not the case. To this day, I have no spoken face-to-face with this individual. I have tried to reach out to no avail. I am not even sure if the email was to be received to be honest. It is the likely case that this person's pride is also keeping the door shut on the opportunity to receive full and true forgiveness. This breaks my heart but I understand now that everyone has their agency, and can choose for themselves. This is one of the lessons I am learning that I will be sharing at a later time. Simply put: For God to allow so much pain and anguish to come at the price of allowing people, good or bad, to choose poor decisions, and then to allow those negative effects to hurt others, must mean that agency is pretty important and valuable to all of us. For if it were not so, God would compel us to choose the right and we would all live happier lives. But I digress...
I will share one more experience that I had. It happened in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Temple a few weeks back. Due to the sacred nature of the temple I will omit many of the details, but will simply say that I went there with a heavy heart and many questions. As I prayed therein, being weighed down by my troubles, I found myself pleading with Heavenly Father to make a deal with me. I told him that I would do all in my power to do whatsoever he would ask of me from that point forward, and that I would trust in Him to provide for my learning and happiness, and in return, I asked him for a few specific blessings for myself and members of my family. I felt an overwhelming answer to my prayer that I will not give details about. This answer, however, changed me. I knew that His love was there and true. This is not to say that I instantly became a humble person, but I noticed that as I allowed Heavenly Father's will to supersede my own will for me, I could FEEL more and more weight being lifted from my shoulders. What an incredible sense of peace, joy, and hope came to me in my despair filled heart.
I am so grateful for that experience which has shown me what a forgiving and humble heart can feel and know. I know that it is only through our forgiving of others' faults and shortcomings, that we are able to be forgiven of our own. I am grateful to know a little bit more of the power and mercy of the Atonement of Jesus Christ through my own trials, although small and insignificant by comparison.
I would like to close with a wonderful quote from a book I have been reading. It is by Dustin W. Bradshaw, who happens to have served a part of his mission in our small congregation in Belfast, Maine while I was a youth. In the Book, White Lilies In Autumn, Dustin recounts a lesson he learned from his mother. The following is a beautifully captured conversation between Dustin and his Mother. She teaches the principles of being humble, asking for forgiveness, then receiving the blessing and joy that comes from receiving that forgiveness in return. Dustin's mother sates:
"You see, it hurts to be humble enough to realize your actions are selfish. It takes honesty and you expose your weaknesses to the world. So most people just deny they have done anything wrong and justify their actions. They may trick themselves into thinking they aren't causing anyone pain and then don't have to face harsh reality. Yet they also miss the joy of knowing you corrected your wrongs." She looked up at me to make sure I was grasping what she was saying.
"I want you to remember how you felt today. Both the stinging guilt of realizing you were in the wrong. And the joy you felt as you saw your friends smile in forgiveness. You are young and there will be many people in your life that will cause you pain or that you will hurt. But if you will remember the power of forgiveness you will be an honorable man-- because you will be willing to do something others are not willing to do."
Perfect. That is the only word I have for the previous dialogue. I am so truly grateful for this lesson at this time in my life and pray that anyone who is weighed down with anger or resentment might allow themselves the gift which God has given us; the Atonement of His Son and the blessing to both forgive, and to be forgiven of our many shortcomings, faults, and flaws.
(I meant to post this the other day but was awaiting permission from Dustin to use his words.)