A LESSON IN SELF-FORGIVENESS

In his day, Alma the Younger became a living testament of the Saviour's power of deliverance.  Not because He forgave him for his sins and saved him from spiritual death, which He certainly did, but because He freed him to become a great man.

After Alma came out of his three days of torment he immediately began to preach of Christ's mercy and His power to save. So much was he consumed with the fervor of saving souls and making amends for his wickedness that he laboured amidst 'much tribulation, being greatly persecuted by those who were unbelievers, being smitten by many of them' (Mosiah 27:32). In other words, Alma got busy following his forgiveness and he got busy doing good. Nowhere in the scriptures does it say that he moped around and agonised over his past sins and felt bad about himself.   How was Alma, a seasoned sinner who persecuted the saints and sought to destroy the Church of God not feeling guilty about what he had done? When recounting his experience to his son Heleman, he informs him of an extremely important end result of forgiveness that He received from the Saviour when he called upon His mercy: "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 36:19). When he awoke from his spiritual ordeal he proclaimed: "My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more" (Mosiah 27:29).

One of the definitions of the word 'harrow' in the dictionary, is 'distress of mind' or to 'disturb painfully'.  What Alma is saying when he speaks of his experience is not that he forgot his sins but that the memory of them no longer distressed him and that the Saviour took away the painful state of mind these sins are capable of inducing.  And why did He do that?  Surely, Alma, having been one of the 'very vilest of sinners' (Mosiah 28:4) deserved to feel bad about what he did for longer than three days.  But Alma did feel bad.  He suffered the godly sorrow asked of every repentant sinner, an intense sorrow, a sign of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, which cast him into the very 'gall of bitterness' (Alma 36:18).  Obviously the Saviour didn't require more than that of Alma.  He did not require him to live in the past by beating up on himself for what he did.  What He did require of Alma was for Alma to become a great man.  A man who would be an instrument in His hands to convince others of His great power to save.

Alma, who once went about with the intent to destroy the Church became Alma who led the Nephite armies in battle, who sat naked with Amulek in dungeons, who was spat upon by the unrepentant, who dumbfounded an anti-christ, who baptised thousands of souls unto repentance (Alma 4:4,5), who the Lord in the end took up unto himself (Alma 45:19).  Alma certainly did become that great man that the Lord needed.

The true sign of repentance is never just forsaking one's sins but allowing the purifying power of the Holy Ghost to create 'a new man in Christ' within us and with this new man becoming a profitable servant of God.  This is true fruits of repentance.  The sons of Mosiah and Alma understood that just forsaking their sins was not enough but that good works should follow their repentance. In Ammon's own words: "Yea, he that repenteth and exercises faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing - unto such it is to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls unto repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren unto repentance." (Alma 26:22)

Out of all of his labours, none is greater than Alma's continual attempt to convince people of Christ's power of deliverance.  He did this through whatever means he could, even willing to suffer extreme physical hardship to be able to teach this principle to others.  We read in Alma chapter 8: "And Alma went forth and also Amulek, among the people, to declare the words of God unto them; and they were filled with the Holy Ghost. And they had power given unto them, insomuch that they could not be confined in dungeons; neither was it possible that any man could slay them; nevertheless they did not exercise their power until they were bound in bands and cast into prison.  Now, this was done that the Lord might show forth his power in them" (Alma 8:30,31). The significance of this cannot be lost on us for the deliverance from physical bondage of Alma and Amulek was not only useful to demonstrate God's power but it served as a metaphor for spiritual deliverance that the Saviour is capable of.

When you look at Alma and his life, do you see a broken man with a past or do you see a powerful prophet of the Lord?  If you are still 'harrowed' up by your past sins, you are missing the person that you could be.  If you believe you are no good, the Lord can make nothing of you.  In this state you are no good to anyone, not to yourself, not to God, not to your fellowman.

If you consider yourself a bad person because of your past and do not possess inner peace, you will eventually start seeking that peace elsewhere.  And some things and places you may end up in on that search have the potential to take away your focus and to distance you from God. When we seek peace in wrong places we tend to attract situations and people that end up confirming to us our belief that we are not good enough. When that confirmation comes, it is just a matter of time before we return to our former sins. Instead of becoming powerful as a result of forgiveness, we become powerless giving over our power to our former sins. We then fall short of true repentance.

If self-forgiveness has not closed the circle of your repentance, you will continue to be 'harrowed up' by your sins and peace will elude you. In examining Alma's life it is plain to see he acquired that peace in two ways.  The first was by acknowledging Jesus Christ's mercy and power to deliver him from the anguish of his soul.  The second was being anxiously engaged in the Gospel.  It is not enough to just stop doing the wrong things.  This does not invite the spirit into your personal spiritual space so it can heal you.  Abstaining from your sins is only the beginning of repentance.  What comes after is what brings about the change of heart and gives you lasting peace. It is nourishing the seed of faith and cultivating the spirit that matters just as much as forsaking of the sin, if not more. Sins create spiritual wounds.  Like all wounds, they need to be healed (see Elder David A. Bednar's talk, We Believe In Being Chaste, Ensign May 2013). The body has a natural ability to heal physical wounds but spiritual healing can only happen spirit to spirit.

"The precise nature of the test of mortality, then, can be summarized in the following question: Will I respond to the inclinations of the natural man, or will I yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and put off the natural man and become a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord (see Mosiah 3:19)? That is the test. Every appetite, desire, propensity, and impulse of the natural man may be overcome by and through the Atonement of Jesus Christ" (David A. Bednar, We Believe in Being Chaste, Ensign May 2013). Herein lies hope. Herein lies our potential to become. Herein lies our salvation.

If you have repented of your sins but can't let go of them, you are giving them more power than you are giving God. The adversary wants nothing more than for your sins to continue to have power over you, even after you have forsaken them.  But that power is really yours and only you can decide how it will be used.  Your forgiveness is not complete until you leave your remorse, like Alma, on the altar of repentance. The power of the Atonement can complete this process.  Believe in it, trust it, ask for it.  The Lord has work for you to do and He is waiting.

A REBELLIOUS SON

There lived in Zarahemla about 120 B.C. a very wicked and idolatrous man who had power over many people to entice them to sin and who went about actively destroying everything his father had painstakingly worked for. This son was the very vilest of sinners, who prepared the way for the enemy of God to steal many souls and who sought to destroy the church of God. This man was the son of the prophet Alma, the only convert of the martyred Abinadi, who defied the wicked king Noah and converted and baptised many people in the waters of Mormon. Imagine the grief and sorrow to have your own son working to discredit your life's work. This was Alma the Younger. Because he was a son and called The Younger, many readers of the Book of Mormon have presumed that Alma the Younger was a youth when rebelling against his father and against God. Mormon however, identifies him as 'a man' (Alma 27:8,9), a well seasoned sinner, well practiced in his ability to create trouble, an apostate who made it his life's work to discredit the Church. It is very unlikely that Alma the Younger was a reckless hot headed youth when he was wreaking havoc. A hot headed youth is more concerned with pursuing his own self interests and rebellion than being involved in apostasy. Shortly after Alma the Younger is visited by an angel, his father Alma dies at the age of 82 (Mosiah 29:45). It would have been unlikely that Alma at this age had a son in his twenties. This would suggest that Alma was more likely to have been in his 40s at the height of his wickedness and ensuing repentance.

The question of Alma's age offers more insight into the severity of his sinful life. His sins were not trivial, but heinous and destructive, not only to himself but to others. His sins and the persecutions which he heaped upon the saints no doubt went on for years. These were not trivial sins easily washed away. One might wonder why the Lord waited so long to send an angel to Alma the Younger to turn him away from his destructive course. In Alma's story, however, we see that God has a purpose for each of us for Alma's conversion became the most powerful lesson about the effectiveness of the Atonement in all the works of scripture. Alma's conversion shows us that no matter how big the sin, the Atonement is bigger still. Not only was Alma exceedingly sinful, his ability to draw people to him and his power to convince them to follow his course would have filled him with enormous pride which would have hardened his heart to be in direct opposition to God, making repentance extremely difficult without God's intervention (expressed by Elder L. Tom Perry, source unknown). Alma was surely in Satan's clutches in every way. For such a vile sinner, there had to be a spectacular conversion. A conversion that would show what the Lord can make of us even when we seem to be beyond the point of no return, a conversion that would highlight not only the Saviour's mercy but the scope of His care and incomprehensible love. The extent and seriousness of Alma's sins can be seen in the recounting of his experience where he says he waded 'through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death', being 'in the darkest abyss', his soul being 'racked with eternal torment' (Mosiah 27:28,29). Amidst all that anguish of soul, Alma describes his deliverance with an interesting word. He says he was snatched from eternal torment and everlasting burning. Imagine the Saviour's willingness to go to the fires of hell to deliver one of the vilest of sinners. Imagine the power to snatch someone from excruciating pain before they are consumed. What more powerful lesson can we learn from Alma's conversion than this?

"I remember reading about a fire fighter in the eastern United States who ran into a burning house to rescue several children from an arson-induced fire. While his colleagues battled the blaze to keep it from spreading to other structures in the neighborhood, this man dashed into the building again and again, each time emerging with a child in his arms. After rescuing a fifth child, he started into the inferno once more. Neighbors shouted that there were no more children in the family. But he insisted that he had seen a baby in a cradle, and he dove into the intensifying heat.

Moments after he disappeared into the fire and smoke, a horrifying explosion shook the building and the entire structure collapsed. It was several hours before fire fighters were able to locate their colleague's body. They found him in the nursery near the crib, huddled protectively over a  life-sized - and practically unscratched - doll.

I'm overwhelmed by that story. I'm touched by the fire fighter's courageous and selfless devotion to duty, and I'm thankful that there are men and women in the world who are willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of others.

As I think about such heroism, however, I'm reminded that the most heroic act of all time ever was performed in behalf of all mankind by the Son of God. In a very real sense, all of humanity - past, present, and future - was trapped behind a wall of flame that was fueled and fanned by our own faithlessness. Sin separated mortals from God (see Romans 6:23), and would do so forever unless a way was found to put out the fires of sin and rescue us from ourselves" (Elder M. Russell Ballard, Our Search for Happiness, p 11)

"Can a woman forget her sucking child,

that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?

Yea, they may forget, 

yet will I not forget thee.

Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands;

thy walls are continually before me."

Isaiah 49:15,16

(I wish to acknowledge two sources of insights for this blog, namely: Maurine Proctor of Meridian Magazine who raised the question of Alma's age and Ted Gibbons for highlighting the word 'snatch', in their informative articles on The Book of Mormon Lesson #20, My Soul Is Pained No More)

YE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD PART 1

"Ye are the light of the world.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle,

and put it under a bushel,

but on a candlestick;

and it giveth light unto all

that are in the house."

- Matthew 5:14-15

"Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated - with one another; with the rainy, sleety weather; with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here. 

But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. 'Folks', he said, 'I know you've had a rough day and you're frustrated. I can't do anything about the weather or traffic, but here's what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don't take your problems home to your families tonight - just leave 'em with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I'll open the window and throw your troubles in the water. Sound good?

It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who'd been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other's existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?

Oh, he was serious.

At the next stop - just as promised - the driver reached out his hand, palm up,and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up - but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.

We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it's extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and

you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don't know where to find it.

But what if you are the light? What if you're the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?

That's what this bus driver taught me - that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn't some big power player. He wasn't a spiritual leader. He wasn't some media-savvy 'influencer'. He was a bus driver - one of society's most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully  for our benefit.

When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world's troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I can't personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can't control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other's name. How we behave matters because within human society everything is contagious - sadness and anger, yes, but also patience and generosity. Which means we all have more influence than we realize.

No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated - one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river."

- Elizabeth Gilbert, author or Eat, Pray, Love and The Signature of All Things

I cannot read this story of the thoughtful bus driver without getting emotional. As Elizabeth Gilbert said, a bus driver is one of society's most invisible workers and yet, to me at least, he possessed more power on that rainy, dreary night than any military leader who conquers nations. Why? Because he lightened people's loads with as little as the palm of his hand. No weapon, no gadget, no instrument, just the palm of his hand. Often we think we are not skilled enough to lift another, to light the path at their feet, to carry their burdens. We often live from day to day wrapped up in a cloud of self interest full of our own problems, troubles, fears, burdens, responsibilities and pressures. We are told in the scriptures that in our day 'men's hearts shall fail them' and the love of men shall wax cold' (D&C 45:26,27). We see evidence of this all around us in public, where courtesy is denied and chivalry is dead. We have forgotten where we came from and who we are and most importantly we have forgotten the mandate that we could be and should be a light in this dreary world. We have forgotten we are our brother's keeper. In the midst of our own troubles and responsibilities, this charge may seem overwhelming but in reality it does not require much more of us than human kindness, a loving gesture, a smile - in short: a connection, an exchanged energy, a bonding with other human beings who are with us in this vale of tears. 

None of us is an island. We all need approbation, human contact, acceptance, understanding. We need someone to say: I see you, you exist. None of us need to do mortality alone, and we shouldn't do it alone. Consider another story from Elizabeth Gilbert:


"Back in 2002, I went away by myself for ten days to a tiny fishing island in the middle of Indonesia. It was the farthest-away place I could find on the map, and all I wanted right then was to be as far removed as possible from all that I knew. My life was a mess. My life, in fact, looked like a dropped pie; everything was on the floor in pieces. I was going through a bad divorce, and in the process I was losing a husband, losing a house, losing money, losing friends, losing sleep, losing myself. So I took myself to this little island 10,000 miles from home, where I rented a small bamboo hut that cost a few dollars a day. My plan was to spend ten days in silence and isolation. I hoped that making myself small and quiet would heal me. I guess what I really wanted was to disappear, and this island seemed the perfect place for it. There was no Internet, and I had no access to a phone. Transportation consisted of fishing boats, or wooden carts pulled by skinny ponies. Here, surely, I could hide from the world. 

Soon, I fell into a routine, Every day, I would walk twice around the perimeter of the entire island - once at dawn and again at dusk. While I walked, I would try to meditate, but usually I ended up arguing with myself, or ruminating over my life's many failures as I fell apart into tears. As for the rest of the day, I believe I slept a lot. I was awfully depressed. I hadn't brought any books with me to disappear into. I didn't swim: I didn't sunbathe; I barely ate. I just executed my two walks a day, and the rest of the time I hid in my hut and wished the sadness out of me.

There were a few other tourists on the island, but they were all romantic couples and they mostly ignored me - I was a skinny, hollow-eyed, solo woman who talked to herself and gave off a freaky vibe. The local fishermen also looked right through me whenever I walked by. Maybe I actually was vanishing from the material world. I certainly felt that way. But there was one woman who saw me - and that changed everything. She was a local fisherman's wife, and she lived in a tiny shack on the other side of the island. Like all the locals, she was Muslim. She dressed modestly, with a head scarf. She seemed to be in her mid-thirties, though she had spent a lifetime in the sun so her age was hard to determine. She had a chubby little toddler who was always crawling about and playing at her feet.

The first morning I walked by her house, the woman looked up from her work in her scrubby subsistence garden and smiled at me. I smiled back, as best I could manage. After that, she always seemed to be standing outside her house when I passed - once at dawn and again at dusk. After a while, it seemed like she was waiting for me to come by. She was my only point of human contact in the world, and her mere recognition of my existence made me feel slightly less lonely. Once, I glanced back at her, and I saw that she was still looking after me, her hand shading her eyes. She was keeping an eye on me, is what it felt like.

On my eighth night on the island, I got terribly sick. It could have been food poisoning, or contaminated drinking water - or maybe it was just that I had finally reached the bottom of my grief and everything bad was coming out of me at last. I was shaking and feverish, vomiting and scared. It was terrifying to be so isolated and so ill. Also, the generators weren't working that night; there was no light. I remember crawling toward the bathroom in the darkness for the tenth time and wondering, 'Why did I come here, so far away from anyone who cares about me?'

I stayed in bed all the next day, shaking and sweating and dehydrated. I had a dreadful thought that I might die on this island all alone, and that my mother would never know what happened to me. That evening, after sundown, there was a knock on the door. On trembling legs, I walked and opened it. It was the woman from the other side of the island - the fisherman's wife. She din't speak English, and I don't speak Bahasa, but it was clear that she was checking on me and that she was worried. When she saw my condition, she looked even more worried. She put up a finger, like: Wait. Less than an hour later, she was back. She brought me a plate of rice, some chopped-up herbs, and a jug of fresh water. She came into the shack and sat on the side of my bed while I ate every bite of this healing food. I started crying. She put her arm around me, and I folded myself into her as if she were my own mother - even though we were almost the same age. She stayed with me for about an hour, until I was composed. She didn't say a word: she just sat with me, arms around me, as if to say: I see you. You exist. I will stay with you. I will make sure you are safe.

Only after she had departed did I have the clarity to piece together what must have happened. This stranger had come to find me because she'd noticed that I had missed both my morning and my evening walks, and she could clearly see: something is not right with this one. And because this was her island - her territory - and because she knew I was alone, she took it upon herself to look after me. She, who had so little to share, made me her responsibility and took the risk of reaching out.

The distance I had traveled may have been vast (10,000 miles from home), but the distance she traveled was vaster (all the way across the island, to knock on a stranger's door) and the kindness of her actions opened my heart to awe and amazement. And that's when I realized that my entire impulse had been dead wrong. I needed the exact opposite of isolation; I needed connection. This stranger had seen my need, and she had offered fellowship."

We are the light of the world. A light that transcends language, nationality, race, class. A light that speaks to all who belong to the human race. A light which was placed within us when we left our heavenly home. May we remember to keep it burning as we traverse the shores of mortality in hopes of saving a drowning soul.

Brightly beams our Father's mercy

From his lighthouse ever more,

But to us he gives the keeping

Of the lights along the shore.

Dark the night of sin has settled;

Loud the angry billows roar.

Eager eyes are watching, longing,

For the lights along the shore.

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother,

Some poor sailor, tempest tossed,

Trying now to make the harbor,

In the darkness may be lost.

Let the lower lights be burning,

Send a gleam across the wave.

Some poor fainting, struggling seaman

You may rescue, you may save.

- Philip Paul Bliss