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.

Promises

God makes promises, and He keeps them. There's no arguing that. Sometimes it's a little hard to believe though. Like when He promises you the job you want, but nobody hires you for the job you want. Like when He promises health and prosperity to those who keep the commandments, but a friend suddenly has liver failure at the age of 22 and passes away.

God sees fit to try our faith, doesn't He?
Without the trial, how will we ever learn to really trust Him?

The benefit of the doubt is that when God makes a promise, there is no room for doubt.
Doubts aren't (or shouldn't) be big enough to displace the testimony that comes from an answer directly from the Lord, even when He tries our faith.

The Wall

A friend has felt lately that she's come up against a wall. She has to make a decision, but this proverbial and figurative wall seems to just get in the way of any clarity or helpful information. It makes it hard to know which direction to go. It blocks the view. It's solid. She doesn't know if she should power through it, go around, under, over. Maybe just stay on the side she's already on.

Doubts are like that wall sometimes. They just block out the light and get in the way of our progress.

The benefit of the doubt here is that pushing through that wall will make you stronger and aware of the strength you had the whole time. Searching for a way to get around that wall is a good time to explore yourself and the world around you. Climbing that wall will put you on top and give you a newer broader perspective. The benefit of the doubt is that as we conquer it, it makes us better and stronger than before.

Just as the father of the afflicted child in Mark 9, if we take our doubts to the Lord and ask for His help, He will expand our capabilities and increase our faith.

Carmody and the Egyptians

Happy Sabbath.
Today was a day to learn to trust the Lord and give Him the benefit of the doubt. He knows what He is doing. He's in charge. He knows the way that His plan is supposed to work. 

Moses got all the way up to the Red Sea, and then the Israelites started to complain, saying that they would have rather died in Egypt because at least they would have had a grave. They doubted. They had seen so many miracles and knew the promises the Lord had made to take them to a better land. But they forgot, and they doubted.

13 ¶And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will ^ashew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.

 14 The Lord shall ^afight for you, and ye shall hold your ^bpeace. (Exodus 14)

Who are we to doubt the Lord?

The benefit of doubt is that it is not meant to be permanent. Doubt has its small place. It can be replaced by faith. Faith is today and tomorrow. Faith is forever. Faith is eternal. Faith is for the future.

My dear friend Carmody Sagers passed away today. She was bright and strong, a disciple of Christ and one who found the beauty in small things like sunsets and butterflies. She taught me that every sunset is important. She taught me that every person is important. I love her as one of my closest friends; she will be remembered for her kindness and wisdom. She fought a very hard battle and liver failure proved to be too much. She passed peacefully to the other side, and instead of doubting the plan that the Lord has for her, I believe that she is okay now. One of my professors actually said that if she's only 22, and God says that it's time for her to go back to Him, then she learned everything she needed to learn in mortality. It means that she's ready to live in the presence of God. She will never have to fight those battles against pain and sickness again. She "shall see them again no more for ever." Thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ, Carmody will live again. 

Even as Job so boldly declared, "yet in [her] flesh shall [she] see God."

Let us not doubt the Lord, but forever be faithful and full of faith.

Little things

Sometimes we doubt whether or not the things we do or say to help others are really worthwhile. It's too easy to get sucked into the trap of feeling like nobody notices the things you do. This whole blogging experience has changed that perspective for me substantially.

Babies can't really go into the ICU as visitors. When a mom with a baby needs to go in and visit, somebody has to take care of that baby. Fortunately for everyone (especially one friend here in the hospital who gets uncomfortable holding or taking care of babies), I rather enjoy looking after children; it was no big deal to hold the little one and try to get her to sleep. It was also fortunate that I was too distracted taking care of her to have any time or energy that could be directed toward doubting that what I was doing was worth anyone's while.

I hadn't thought about how what I did affected others until that mom was heading out for the night. She gave me a big hug, and I could just tell that it meant a lot to her.

The benefit of the doubt is that we get to choose how much weight that doubt has. If we want to let it weigh enough that we'll never be able to move it, that's really our choice. However, should we decide that the doubt we feel has little weight, it can easily be displaced by love, hope, faith, and any of the positive feelings that fight to push doubts aside.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.... If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." (Galatians 5:22,25)

College

It's easy enough to believe that your college professors are only passionate about their subject matter. When they pile on the homework, papers, research, readings, assignments, evaluations, etc. it's easy to think they only want you to focus on what they have for you to do or what's important to them. I should give more professors the benefit of the doubt.

I talked to my professors about Carmody and how I want to be able to spend time at the hospital. The expected responses were: "Well, don't forget about your classes", "Make sure you can do your readings while you're there", "Are you going to be able to get your homework in on time?", etc.

The responses I got were: "How's your friend doing?", "Don't even worry about your work right now; I'll work with you", "It's not about whether or not I'm okay with you missing my class; you're an adult, and you know where you need to be", "I don't want you to miss your test and fall behind. I understand that things happen though. You do what you've got to do."

Faith in God has been carrying me for quite a while. Faith in humanity gets bolstered day by day. The benefit of the doubt is when that doubt is proved wrong. When I just try to believe in someone else, sometimes doubts will come, but knowing that they can be proven wrong is pretty comforting.

Letter

It's a strange sensation, reading to someone who doesn't respond. My friend is still here in the hospital, and it's hard to tell if she's sleeping or unconscious.
I just got finished reading her a letter from another friend.
Here's the letter that Carli (the other friend) wrote. Go ahead and read it if you want.

Firstly I want to tell you how beautiful I think you are. You are exceptionally beautiful because you’re so happy all the time. Your bright face coming out of Wyview dorms always makes me so happy. Even when you got upset when other girls were flirting with Mike, I was laughing at how beautifully you were handling the situation (ripping all the pages out of an entire textbook in less than a half hour, I would guess). You bring a lot of beauty in my life. Oh, and you’re naturally beautiful on the outside too, but I’m guessing you hear that from Mike all the time, so I’ll keep that comment short.

Secondly, I wanted to tell you my theory on flowers. Flowers are a plant’s device to lure butterflies, bees, and other sorts of creatures into areas where they can get pollen stuck to themselves. Then, when they fly away, the plant’s pollen flies with them, and the pollen can then be used to make new baby trees. If you don’t understand how that works, ask your parents, or just know that when a mommy tree and a daddy tree love each other very much, they choose to love and care for baby trees too. Back to the theory. Flowers are meant to attract. They are there for beauty and for functionality. That’s what nature says. For God, I think that flowers are given to us as testimonies of God.

My dad gives my mom a bouquet of flowers every year for my mom’s birthday. It’s always an arrangement of the Birds of Paradise flower. This is one of the most dominant images in my mind when I think of love. Love between husband and wife, love in a family, and love between friends. Flowers, to me, are closely associated with love. “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. . . . he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect” (1 John 4:8, 16-17). Just like my father gives my mom flowers to show her he loves her, I believe that our Heavenly Father gives us (individually and collectively) flowers to show us he loves us. That is part of His testimony to us of his love for us.

Here at the London Study Abroad, we had our own Valentine’s Day last Saturday. Since there are about 35 girls, 3 boys, and three couples (professors and wives), female students were asking boys and girls on “dates.” It was a way for everyone to share their love and friendship with each other and have a fun time planning and doing special things for each other. I was designated to be an “asker,” or the one who asks on a date. I got to ask Lyssa on a date, and lucky for me I had had a class with her last semester. This is important because this is where I learned that Lyssa loves Wordsworth. Well, when I picked her up for the “date,” I brought with me a small bouquet of yellow daffodils. Wordsworth wrote the poem “I wandered lonely as a cloud,” which goes on to describe, “a host, of golden daffodils; / beside the lake, beneath the trees, / fluttering and dancing in the breeze.” Pretty, right? So I put these daffodils in a giant water bottle (instead of a vase . . . McGyver incarnate right here), and Lyssa left them on the mantle by the front door of the BYU London Centre. Every time I walk by the front door, I see those bright yellow daffodils and I’m happier. They are a source of sunshine in this terribly overcast country. It’s surprising how beautiful flowers can make the inside of buildings look, regardless of the outside conditions . . .or even the inside ones. I believe that God gave us flowers to give us hope regardless of whatever is going on around them. Flowers are God’s example to us of optimism. President Gordon B. Hinckley counseled us to “cultivate an attitude of happiness. Cultivate a spirit of optimism. Walk with faith, rejoicing in the beauties of nature, in the goodness of those you love, in the testimony which you carry in your heart concerning things divine” (Standing for Something). One of my favorite quotations, actually, comes from President Heber C. Kimball. He said, “I am perfectly satisfied that my Father and my God is a cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured Being. Why? Because I am cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured when I have His Spirit” (Journal of Discourses vol. 4, p. 222). Jesus Christ Himself is echoed in this quotation, for he stated (as recorded in John 16:33), “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” Those yellow daffodils remind me to be optimistic and lively, just like Heavenly Father is.

There are so many kinds of flowers in the world. I don’t know how Heavenly Father created them all, let alone keeps track of them all. But I know He does. I really do. “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Matthew 6:28-29). That’s right, God can spend so much time on each individual lily (and lilies in the collective) so that each flower’s beauty is more beautiful than the manmade temples that were supposed to have the most beautiful materials in them. “Shall he not much more clothe you?” (vs. 30) we are asked. If God desires to make each flower more beautiful than anything we can come up with, then why would he not be so concerned about his children individually in making them beautiful also? That’s why we have spiritual gifts. Carmody, I think you have the spiritual gift of happiness. I do. I think you have many other gifts, but the one that has impacted me the most is your gift for being happy. I know God is watching out for you, oh one more precious than the lilies of the field and the fowl of the air.

Flowers are wonderful things, are they not? I wish I were there to give you flowers myself, but since I’m not, I’m sending you pictures of flower on Facebook. Here’s the deal: you get a flower a day. I’m sending you these flowers to remind you that God is love, and He is all around us wanting us to be optimistic and to hope even in the darkest time. I’m sending you flower pictures because I want you to know that you are individually beautiful and precious to him. Remember that these flowers are for you, Carmody. They are to remind you ultimately of God and your worth in His Kingdom and His sight. I want you to take these flowers, too, as a reminder of how much I love you, how much I hope for you, and how much I care for you as an individual and a friend. You are like a flower in my life, and I want to return the favor.

“For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.”

William Wordsworth, “I wandered Lonely as a cloud”

Carmody, thanks for being my daffodils.

If you've ever read a letter to someone who doesn't respond to anything, you know as well as I do, that it's easy enough to doubt whether or not anything is getting in or being heard. I walked away wondering if she had even heard, let alone comprehended or appreciated what Carli had written and I had read. 

I got back on Skype, and Carli told me "I have faith that Carmody heard the letter". Carli's on the other side of the world. She can't see anything that's going on here. Faith isn't really about seeing though. It's about giving the benefit of the doubt.

The benefit of the doubt is that we don't have to remain in the doubt. The benefit is that when we close our eyes and pray, we have the opportunity to set aside what we have seen and believe. Faith is the other side of doubt, and just like with a coin, we can pick one side. The best thing about the faith-doubt coin is that when we lay it down faith-side up, we completely cover doubt, and it disappears.