DAY 14

Question: How do I forgive someone who has really betrayed or hurt me?
Read: Colossians 3:12-17
Ponder: Am I as good at forgiving myself as I am at forgiving others?  Self-condemnation keeps us from experiencing the full joy of Christ.  Am I living there?

A sister who had been through a painful divorce write of her experience drawing from the Atonement.  She said: "Our divorce...did not release me from my obligation to forgive. I truly wanted to do it, but it was as if I had been commanded to do something of which I was simply incapable."  Her bishop gave her some sound advice:  "Keep a place in your heart for forgiveness, and when it comes, welcome it in."  Many months passed as this struggle to forgive was continued.  She recalled:  "During those long prayerful moments...I tapped into a life-giving source of comfort from my Heavenly Father.  I sense that he was not standing by glaring at me for not having accomplished forgiveness yet; rather he was sorrowing with me as I wept. ..."

"Forgiven" by Greg Olsen

In the final analysis, what happened in my heart is for me an amazing and miraculous evidence of the Atonement of Christ.  I had always viewed the Atonement as a means of making repentance work for the sinner. I had not realized that it also makes it possible for the one sinned against to receive into his or her heart the sweet peace of forgiving."  
(James E. Faust, "Our Greatest Hope," Ensign Nov 2001)