"As a new year begins and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives.
There is something in many of us that particularly fails to forgive and forget earlier mistakes in life—either our mistakes or the mistakes of others. It is not good. It is not Christian. It stands in terrible opposition to the grandeur and majesty of the Atonement of Christ. To be tied to earlier mistakes is the worst kind of wallowing in the past from which we are called to cease and desist.
When something is over and done with, when it has been repented of as fully as it can be repented of, when life has moved on as it should and a lot of other wonderfully good things have happened since then, it is not right to go back and open some ancient wound that the Son of God Himself died to heal.
Let people repent. Let people grow. Believe that people can change and improve. Is that faith? Yes! Is that hope? Yes! Is that charity? Yes! Above all, it is charity, the pure love of Christ.
The proviso, of course, is that repentance has to be sincere, but when it is and when honest effort is being made to progress, we are guilty of the greater sin if we keep remembering and recalling and rebashing someone with his or her earlier mistakes—and that someone might be ourselves. We can be so hard on ourselves—often much more so than on others!
You can remember just enough to avoid repeating the mistake, but then put the rest of it all on the dung heap Paul spoke of to the Philippians. Dismiss the destructive, and keep dismissing it until the beauty of the Atonement of Christ has revealed to you your bright future and the bright future of your family, your friends, and your neighbors. God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go."
These are just a few parts of his talk that I really liked and stood out to me. I highly recommend reading his whole talk! Here are some of my thoughts about it. I am so grateful for my savior Jesus Christ and that died so that I can be healed from my mistakes and the mistakes of others that have hurt me. We are here to learn and grow and when we don't forgive and forget we are only hurting ourselves. We need to have faith in Christ and trust that He does have a plan for us and even though we might not be able to see it until a little later. Faith is always pointed forward to the future! Faith is the opposite of fear. When we have faith in God we will be happy because we will be moving forward and trusting in the one who knows us best. I really loved the part when he says, "Let people repent. Let people grow. Believe that people can change and improve." So often I think we don't allow others to grow because we focus too much on their mistakes from their past. But don't we all want to be forgiven of our own sins and have them be forgotten? When we forgive others past mistakes and forget them we are showing faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement. I know that Jesus atoned for us all and that through Him is the only way to move forward and forget our past. “He who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more” (D&C 58:42).
