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.)

Perseverance and Hope

This is my first blog post so forgive me my weakness in writing. I have intended to write on a blog for multiple purposes. First, I have historically desired but never been successful in keeping a consistent journal. I am hoping that having something online where I can type will give me a better venue from the pen-and-pencil format that my hands ache at the very thought of. Second, there is a lot going on in my life that I would like to share with friends and family, but do not feel the need to burden people with lengthy Facebook posts and such. Third, I feel like it is important for all of us to share experiences with one another which the Lord has blessed us with for the uplifting and edifying of others. For these reasons, and others, I have chosen to start this Blog. It’s my intention that this Blog be as honest and open as possible. I hope you enjoy it and find it beneficial, whether that is simply by getting to know me a little better, or gleaning some spiritual truths as I discover them and share them. At a later time, I may find time to give you more of a back-story as to where my life has led me thus far. For today, I simply wanted to share my thoughts on Perseverance and Hope. To give you a small history on this lesson which I have learned, it would be helpful to know that I am not very good at sticking with things when they get tough. Not a quality I am proud of, but it’s the truth nonetheless. As a child, I was placed into piano lessons by my parents. I did not enjoy the piano at all. I would rather be outside playing sports, off goofing around with my friends, or home doing anything BUT practicing the piano. It was not that I didn’t like the sound of the piano. It was not that I didn’t admire people who could play the piano. My sister had a natural affinity for the piano and excelled at it. I simply did not take to it very easily and could not see how I could get from where I was to where I wanted to be. I was fortunate to have a mother that pushed me to try it again and again, but was also understanding to the point that after a few years of my complaining and lack of determination, allowed me to stop taking lessons. This unfortunately was the theme of my childhood and adolescent years. By the grace of God, I had a “knack” of many things relating to school and athletics. God blessed with me a lot of natural talent towards many things. This is not meant to be boastful, but to stress that I rarely chose to overcome my weaknesses when doing so would have blessed my life immensely. The best example I have from my life where I chose to overcome a weakness and succeed, from the few I have to choose from, is my pole-vaulting career. When I first moved to Maine from Oregon, I was interested in joining the track team because I was naturally good sprinter. My brother had pole-vaulted a little bit while he was in high school and I had chosen to try it out as an event. I still remember my first few weeks trying to pole-vault. I was not good at it. I could not seem to will myself over the bar. I would get there early, and stay late every day. I would watch my teammates, some of whom had been pole-vaulting for years. I tried and tried but could not get over the bar at its lowest point, which is 7 feet from the ground. I told myself that if I couldn’t get over the bar set at 7 feet on the day of the first track meet, I would give up on it forever. I don’t know why I had such a self-defeating attitude, but I did. For better or worse, coupled with that self-defeating attitude, I am also very stubborn. What this meant for me was that I went to the track at about 6 in the morning to practice when the meet didn’t start until about 10. I tried, and tried and tried. I couldn’t seem to make it over. However, just as people starting showing up to the track, I made it over. I was shocked, so I tried it again, and I made it over. I wasn’t perfect and had a lot left to learn, but I caught that excitement and knew I could make it. This desire to be better and excitement led me to become the State of Maine Pole-vaulting State Champion my senior year of high school. Once again, I do not say this to boast, but to convey of what I would have missed out on had I given up on pole-vaulting. This leads me to my life here and now. I am going through some really tough times, and without going into great detail, it is the single hardest thing I have ever had to face in my life. In fact, I think this single trial is harder than all the other trials, weaknesses, or other struggles I have faced combined. It has taken a toll on me physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I have been tempted with the feeling of, “this is too hard” or “it would be easier if…” as ways to justify my giving up on this situation. And to be honest with you, it indeed would be 100 times easier to simply give up trying to overcome this and just give in and give up. I could move on and go forward with my life. I could “try new things that maybe I would be better at” instead of sticking it out. I have decided to choose the more difficult path because of promises I have made to my Heavenly Father. I had an experience a few days back I would like to share. I met with my local church leader at our local congregation. He and I were actively discussing the pros and cons of what possible decisions I could make at this point in my life. He is a very wise man and had great counsel to give. However, nothing he and I were talking about really struck me spiritually. Most of the discussion was based off logistics and my financial situation. These seemed to be the outlining problems that stemmed from my core problem: Did Heavenly Father actually ask me to do something that would be difficult and would not always be asked or expected of a typical church member in my shoes? Or did I just think it in my own head? We couldn’t really come to an answer by looking at the situation through the lens of logic. That is, until we were about to leave the church. I conveyed to him one final time that I didn’t understand why I felt this way, but that I needed to be sure and strong in what I felt. He said to me, “Brett, remember Joseph Smith when he said ‘I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it; at least I knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation.’” These words impacted me so strongly when I heard it that I knew the spirit was speaking to me. The spirit was telling me that I had indeed received an answer from the Lord and that I needed to stick the situation out. Even if doing so went against logic, ease, or comfort. I won’t go into details because I feel that the revelation I received was too sacred to me to share openly. Suffice it to say, what I heard and felt was something that went against what I had previously supposed to feel, and was even contrary to that which most of my friends and family would have advised. I have many great and wonderful friends and family members. Their counsel is priceless and full of love. But what I received from the spirit was the most important thing to me, and I am thankful for a wise bishop who reminded me of the direct line of communication and the need to stay loyal to that. So, to sum up, I am doing my best to persevere through this time of uncertainty and trial in my life. I am doing my best to have the hope and strength to carry me through this time. One of the Leaders of our church stated in a recent address: There may be times when we must make a courageous decision to hope even when everything around us contradicts this hope. That is what I am striving for. I am doing my best to be hopeful and courageous even when I am prone to give up and to doubt. I know that the road ahead of me is long and difficult. One of the best definitions I have ever heard of on courage is to know pain is coming, but that you can face that pain head on. I’m striving for courage. I pray for the strength that can only be gained by faith, after we have exercised faith in Him through obedience to his Word.