Even as Christ Forgives You, So Also Do Ye: Larry Echo Hawk

This talk was a good one. My thoughts below:
Through the miracle of the sacred Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can also receive the gift of forgiveness of our sins and misdeeds, if we accept the opportunity and responsibility of repentance.
For me, the if/then of repentance/forgiveness is an equation that hasn’t been accurate in my life. What I’ve noticed is that God already forgives. God has already forgiven by the time I even realize it’s needed.
That grace is what spurs repentance and a desire for accountability. I don’t repent to receive forgiveness. I repent because I’ve ALREADY BEEN FORGIVEN. Forgiveness is the first step in the process, not the last.
Forgiveness is the beginning of the work. Those who do not understand this and believe that forgiveness is the culmination of something, are frankly untrustworthy. Forgiveness frees me (and others) to do the inner work. Forgiveness is needed because it provides enough disconnection between the event/parties so that they can become accountable.
individuals are to be held accountable for their criminal acts and civil wrongdoings.
I completely agree. Some of you might be familiar with the Joseph Bishop and McKenna Denson story. Here’s a timeline if you are interested. While the statute of limitations has expired in this case, I do think that it’s important to hold ourselves accountable even if the law doesn’t require us to do so.
If Joseph Bishop was forgiven, why does he have issues owning up to what he did? Why is his lawyer son protecting him? Why isn’t he on McKenna Denson’s side in the fraud case against the Church, stating that she should have been protected from his abuse, and the Church failed to do so?
Brothers and sisters, are there people in our lives who have hurt us? Do we harbor what seem like fully justified feelings of resentment and anger? Are we letting pride keep us from forgiving and letting go? I invite all of us to forgive completely and let healing occur from within.
Here’s my story relating to feelings of anger.
I’m divorced. I wasn’t angry at my ex-husband for leaving me. It made sense, and I empathized with his reasons for doing so. There was something that filled me with rage, though. I was angry that because he left, I had to date again. His leaving put me in that situation.
Eventually, the feelings of anger subsided, but I had to stop misplacing my it onto my ex, and I had to change my belief system.
My Mormon upbringing had drilled into me that marriage was required and that as a single person dating needed to be my #1 priority. I think this was a holdover of my YSA days. Additionally, through post-divorce, therapy, I learned the importance of not “putting up walls” and how “humans are wired for connection”. I somehow internalized that to consider myself healed from my divorce; I needed to move on. And moving on meant dating.
Yet I had no desire to date. I was trying to make myself do something I didn’t want to do. And I was angry at my ex about it instead of restructuring my belief system.
Once I realized my incorrect beliefs (and realized that I didn’t have to believe in a heaven full of married couples), I was able to disconnect my feelings from my ex, see the connection between my anger and my belief system, and start to believe something different.
I no longer harbor anger toward my ex and I did the inner work to let go of an ingrained belief system. Eventually, I accepted the parts of me that didn’t align with those beliefs.
So often, I think, forgiveness requires us restructuring how we view an event or ourselves. Most people take that to believe that we need to love the person that harmed us, we need to be grateful for difficult trials, etc. However, this is not what I mean.
Forgiveness requires us to hold ourselves and the other person accountable. Forgiveness of an abuser, for example, requires us to see their actions as abusive. It requires us to feel the feelings associated with that truth. It’s not about “letting go” of those hard and difficult feelings. Forgiveness and the disconnection it provides, free us enough to face hard truths and uncomfortable feelings. And that’s where healing begins.
