Forgiveness

"...a man who during childhood was frequently threatened with abandonment can easily attribute such intentions to his wife. He will then misinterpret things she says and does in terms of such intent, and then take whatever action he thinks would best meet the situation he believes to exist. Misunderstanding and conflict must follow. In all this he is as unaware he is being biased by his past experience as he is that his present beliefs and expectations are mistaken." (Feeney and Monin 2008)

Science says that if something troubling has happened to us in the past—something like divorce, traumatic events, death of a loved one, abuse, addiction, and a plethora of other possible things— we are inescapably affected by it (whether or not we are aware). The research above says that if a boy is abused, he will be forever suspicious of his wife and her behaviors. If she goes out to be with friends and says, "I'm going out with friends while you watch football," that man (according to science) will tend to think She says she's going out with friends, but which friends? Will other men be there? Is she being unfaithful to me? And thus begins the downward spiral of misunderstanding and mistrust.

 So how does that man learn to trust his wife? After all, it's outside of his control, right? Something happened to him that he couldn't avoid, right? It's not that he doesn't trust her, but rather that he was hurt in the past, and he's "being biased by his past experience," right? It's not his fault, right?

Not right.

Judgement, bias, pride, distrust—those are all weakness that we have. Christ teaches that if we come to him, He can show us our weaknesses (Ether 12:27). He can show us where we are being judgmental. He can show us the prideful root of our flawed behavior. He can get to the root of the seed of distrust that we may have planted in ourselves.
He helps us to make the root-changes that we need to make by commanding us to forgive one another. Even if we've been "threatened with abandonment," abused, forgotten, He commands us to forgive. Forgiveness is the ultimate exercise of trust. It's changing the nature of the way you see that person who has offended you. Trading out mistrust for full trust.

The benefit of there even being doubt in the first place is that the Atonement, that sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ, can rip those doubts out of us if we come to Him. The benefit of that opening where doubt used to be is that it can be filled with whatever we choose. If we are truly forgiving, we can fill it with trust, we can fill it with hope, and we can fill it with love.


Christ lives. He is my Savior. He died to make us free. He suffered the pain of sin so that we can forgive and be forgiven without robbing justice.