Friends At First Are Friends At Last

It is truly amazing how sincere prayers/desires of the heart are answered expeditiously. I'll ease you into a story and then, if I remember, I'll tie it back in to my opening statement. I took part of an interesting discuss, today, on a topic I've had a particularly hard time with over the past two years - that of forgiveness. While I have been blessed with a relatively forgiving nature, the harsher assults tend to harbor, as I attempt to figure out the great "WHY!?": Why did this person do this? How can they think this way? etc, etc, etc. These harsher assults tend to be ones that carry more of an emotional trigger with them, one procured by what I consider a sort of emotional "broadsiding". One in particular offense I have been holding on to for 2+ years because I just could not come to terms with the fact that a professional could believe has he expressed himself, especially after I had confided in him with an open heart.

But to what end?

During the discussion I mentioned above, we looked at several examples extracted from sections of history of revered men who had rendered forgiveness to those who had sorely crossed them, at times, resulting in wrongful imprisonment and all the great and wonderful things that accompany. Barring the standard discussion of how pride is at the root of witholding forgiveness, what impressed me most in each of the examples given was how quickly forgiveness was given. It almost seemed instantly! But unless you're an anomaly, we all know how hard it is to go from anger to love instantaneously. It's near impossible for mortal man. So how can this end-picture of resolution occur?

I think the wronged had forgiven the offender long before each of the moments of truth, where the offender expressed sincere remorse to the wronged.

Granted, that's assuming the offenders even approached those they had wronged at all! While I don't have the hard numbers proving it, I am fairly confident that for as many times as there are expressions of repentance there are just as many that never hear, or ever thought they would hear, those words, "I'm sorry" in whatever shape, form, or fashion. That's all well and good. As I heard one young lady proffer during our discussion, to forgive is often more for you than it is for the someone else. I found this especially true when you think about all of the baggage that comes with harboring resentment and anger toward someone. Too much wasted energy, especially if you're just going to sit around waiting for something you think you deserve (an apology) that may take years to come, if it comes at all. Talk about being all dressed up with no where to go...

While sincere apologies are nice, they may indeed never come. Such is the situation I found myself in 2 years ago interviewing for Physical Therapy programs. I won't go into the details, but some things were said that "emotionally broadsided" me and I honestly didn't know what to say. I wrote letters to the program and the appropriate personnel with the university, however, to my knowledge, nothing came of it in the end. I was both enraged and hurt, because I was naive enough to think that with upper personnel under such scrutiny that anything like that would happen to anyone anymore, let alone me, especially in a profession known for it's good hearted people.

While I attended a different program that I came to find was the more appropriate choice for me, I gradually remembered the incident less and less, but I had never truly felt at peace with the situation. That is, until today when I had a prayer answered and I finally felt at peace for the first time in 2 years. Some would attribute it to time and how it heals all wounds, but you don't know me very well if that's your first and only conclusion. I have a very long memory.

Since April, I've been graduallly preparing myself to enter the temple to make my higher covenant with Heavenly Father, and a couple weeks ago I completed the temple preparation courses. Part of the prerequisites to enter being personal worthiness, which balances on keeping God's commandments and earnestly striving to live a Christ-like life, I knew I had to genuinely come to terms with that incident before I could even allow myself to approach my bishop for a temple recommend. There's a good brother at church who I have a hard time with on occasion who earned his graduate degree from that same university, so it just made it even more of a challenge, lol. I digress. A few days prior to the discussion I had today, I had had enough and in one aloud private conversation with my Heavenly Father, I expressed my frustration with how it's been 2 years, and why do I still have such an anger toward this problem? I didn't want to have these feelings! That was the thing - the deep-down part of me wanted to get past it all (it sees the greater perspective in all things, I swear it does), but the more superficial part of me still occasionally clung.

Today, in many respects in thanks to the lesson I received on forgiveness, I finally got myself under control. It doesn't matter if I ever get an apology or not - quite frankly, I don't expect one. What's done is done, and I harbor no ill-will.