Choir Notes

Sweet Joy of Forgiveness
From Music and the Spoken Word
Delivered by: Lloyd D. Newell . Program 4145

At some time in our lives, every one of us has been wounded by the actions or words of another. Those wounds can leave us brokenhearted, resentful, angry, and perhaps revengeful. To forgive such mistakes—or even intentional wrongdoing—is one of the hardest things we will ever do. But it can also lead to the sweetest joy we will ever experience.

Years ago, the media reported the story of an elderly man who disclosed at his brother’s funeral that for years the two had been estranged, their lives filled with bitterness and loneliness. Though they lived together in a small, one-room cabin in rural western New York, a quarrel had turned them against each other, and in their anger they divided the room in half with a line of chalk. Neither one crossed the line or spoke a word to the other since that day. It had been 62 years.1

Every relationship—between family members, neighbors, and friends—is made up of imperfect people, ourselves included. Slights and misunderstandings are inevitable. When we hold on to our anger, we may think we’re exacting justice from our offender, but in reality we are punishing ourselves. When we forgive, we aren’t minimizing the injury—we’re allowing it to heal. When we admit our own errors and seek forgiveness ourselves, we aren’t excusing the errors others may have made—we’re simply opening the door to compassion and peace.

Had the two brothers set aside their differences, those six decades together could have been filled with precious memories. It’s too late for them but not for us. Getting the other person to change is not a part of the process. Forgiveness is making a meaningful change in our own hearts.

1 See Thomas S. Monson, “The Peril of Hidden Wedges,” Ensign, July 2007, 7–8.