“When I was in college, I really struggled to forgive myself for past mistakes. I’ve come to realize that most of us, to varying degrees, have faced similar hopeless feelings, but I remember confiding in a friend late one night that despite my efforts to repent, I was unable to forgive myself.
“These feelings of unworthiness felt all-consuming—they were overwhelming. She pulled out her Book of Mormon and started reading from Jacob 5, a chapter with a complicated allegory that I’ve always struggled to understand. But she then explained that she’d always loved the idea expressed in verse 66 that we ‘clear away the bad according as the good shall grow … until the good shall overcome the bad.’ She told me that the goal is to fill our lives with good things, and little by little we will find that the bad is swept away and all that is left is good. Something about what she said gave me hope—it felt doable.
“In the decade that has passed since that night, I’ve found this principle to be true. Filling my life with good helped me move forward from past mistakes that God had long forgiven me for. Little by little, I began to see my life as something filled with good, beautiful things, and that is what He can do—that is what He wants to do with our lives. All we have to do is start to clear away the bad and leave good in its place.” —Morgan
#FeastUpontheWords #thebookofmormon #BookofMormon #Forgiveness #PersonalGrowth
