"If something is buried in the past, leave it buried. . . . Such dwelling on past lives, including past mistakes, is just not right! It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . In cases of marriage and family, . . . we can end up destroying so many others."
—Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Best Is Yet to Be"
Too many times, I want to dig up the graves of my mistakes. I want to sift through the dirt and relive the moments of anger, shame, ridicule and grief. In short, too many times, I make my own self miserable with my dwelling on my own past mistakes. Forgiveness for others has always come easily for me, but forgiveness for myself? Not so much. I see with the gift of hindsight and think of all the ways that I should have changed that. I wish with my entire heart that the mistakes would not have happened. I am very hard on myself. Reading this article, reminded me that I shouldn't be. That Christ knew I would make mistakes and that He atoned for my sins. I honor Him when I learn to forgive myself as well as those I love. I revere Him when I love all those that He loves. And so, today, my struggle is to let go. I will believe the best is yet to be. I will vow to live life anew. Today, I will believe that it is well with my soul.
I really loved your thoughts on this one. I do think it is hard to forgive ourselves and to do so is the only thing to set us free.
ReplyDeleteI will read his article; I loved the quote.
Blessings and hugs!
I am really awful about this and need to do better. I bring up my own past mistakes all the time and beat myself up over it. "Why would you DO that" kinda stuff. I am my harshest critic and it isn't what Christ would have me do.
ReplyDeleteI obviously need to go read that talk now, that's for sharing :)