What does it mean to change?
Can people really change? I am sure I’m not the only person who has
ever asked that question. There have
been times when I believed that change wasn’t possible – that I was stuck with
the life and ways that I had been given.
I excused my behaviors and the behaviors of others because “that’s just
the way we are.”
At other times there were other people telling me that I couldn’t change. They would continually remind me of what I
had done in the past and that if put in the same situations I would revert back
to the same old things and stay the same person I had always been. I couldn’t possibly become better.
Both perpetrators are wrong.
We can change; the challenge is not letting others or ourselves drag us
down. That is Satan’s plan and he is
getting pretty good at convincing the world that it is the ultimate plan.
“There is nothing so unchanging, so inevitable as change
itself. The things we see, touch, and feel are always changing. Relationships between
friends, husband and wife, father and son, brother and sister are all dynamic,
changing relationships. There is a constant that allows us to use change for
our own good, and that constant is the revealed eternal truths of our Heavenly
Father.” (Elder Ashton)
As I have mentioned before in previous posts, one of my biggest fears and lies to overcome was trusting men. I had seen too many instances where women in my life were hurt deeply by the decisions of men. I was so guarded and unwilling to form any vulnerable or lasting relationships with any guy I met. I never let go of control and made sure that if things were going to end they would end on my terms; that way I wouldn’t get my heart broken. I always thought that I would be this way because nothing had shown me that I could be different. But I did change! It came with a lot of effort: praying, fasting, consciously letting my guard down, trusting little by little, praying again, being vulnerable even when I didn’t know the ending or have control, still praying, etc. The joy that has come from that monumental, yet incremental, change is beyond anything I could have imagined.
Temples are pure
and sacred. The Lord has told us that we
need to be clean to enter in. The Lord is the one who tells us if we
can enter and be blessed by the covenants we make with Him there. Think of your favorite temple. How would you feel if every time you tried to
enter the temple grounds your old friend, boyfriend, or family member was
standing in the way reminding you of the mistake you had made years ago? What if the mirrors of the temple reflected
back all the bad thoughts you had ever had and held you captive forever, never
allowing you to enter? What if your white
temple clothes and stains from every bad word you ever spoke and there was no
way of washing them out or getting a new set?
How would you feel? Would you
even try to go back to the temple? I
wouldn’t.
That sounds like my worst nightmare. The temple, so beautiful and bright, would be
a dark, depressing hole of despair for any of us who have sinned in this life –
which, by the way, is everyone. Temples
are a symbol of Christ and His atonement.
The obstacles are everything around us that can keep us away from the
beauty and purity we could find in it.
When we ourselves or others build fences around the atonement we will be
miserable to find that once the fence is finished we are standing on the wrong
side; unable to access the very thing we were trying to keep safe. The atonement is infinite; it has no
boundaries, no limits, and no barriers.
It can reach all. It has the
power to change all.
Change can be one big thing or a compilation of a lot of
little things. It can take years and
years or it can happen over night.
Whatever your situation the important thing to remember is that you CAN
change. And with the help of the Savior
you can change for good.
The Book of Mormon gives us many examples of individuals who
decided to change and be better. One of
my favorite stories of extreme change is Alma
the younger: he went from persecuting the believers of God to becoming the
prophet after a big change of heart. The
Book of Mormon also gives us a formula for change found in Mosiah 5:2-3
“…the
Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good
continually.
And we, ourselves, also, through the infinite goodness of
God, and the manifestation of his Spirit, have
great views of that which is to come…” (emphasis added).
Don’t be fooled into thinking that you can’t change. It is a lie and one that can be so
detrimental to your eternal happiness.
You can change. You can be
healed. You can be free. Turn to the Savior and let Him help you
change the things in your life that need to be changed.
Elder Jeffery R Holland said,
”There is something in us, at least in too many of us, that
particularly fails to forgive and forget earlier mistakes in life—either
mistakes we ourselves have made or the mistakes of others. That is not good. It
is not Christian. It stands in terrible opposition to the grandeur and majesty
of the Atonement of Christ. To be tied to earlier mistakes—our own or other
people’s—is the worst kind of wallowing in the past from which we are called to
cease and desist.
Let people repent. Let people grow. Believe that people can change and
improve. Is that faith? Yes! Is that hope? Yes! Is it charity? Yes! Above
all, it is charity, the pure love of Christ. If something is buried in the
past, leave it buried. Don’t keep going back with your little sand pail and
beach shovel to dig it up, wave it around, and then throw it at someone,
saying, “Hey! Do you remember this?” Splat! And soon enough everyone comes out of that exchange dirty and muddy and unhappy and hurt, when what God, our Father in Heaven, pleads for is cleanliness and kindness and happiness and healing.
Such dwelling on past lives, including past mistakes, is just not right! It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is in some ways worse than Lot’s wife, because at least she [was] only destroying [herself]. In these cases of marriage and family and wards and apartments and neighborhoods, we can end up destroying so many, many others.
Perhaps at this beginning of a new year there is no greater
requirement for us than to do as the Lord Himself said He does: “Behold, he who
has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them
no more” (D&C 58:42).
The proviso, of course, is that repentance has to be
sincere, but when it is and when honest effort is being made to progress, we
are guilty of the greater sin if we keep remembering and recalling and
rebashing someone with their earlier mistakes—and that “someone” might be
ourselves. We can be so hard on ourselves, often much more so than with others!
Now, like the Anti-Nephi-Lehies of the Book of Mormon, bury your weapons of
war, and leave them buried. Forgive, and do that which is harder than to
forgive: Forget. And when it comes to mind again, forget it again. You can remember just enough to avoid repeating the mistake, but then put the rest of it all on the dung heap Paul spoke of to those Philippians. Dismiss the destructive and keep dismissing it until the beauty of the Atonement of Christ has revealed to you your bright future and the bright future of your family and your friends and your neighbors. God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go. That is the thing Lot’s wife didn’t get…”
Additional Study
Elder Holland; Remember Lot’s Wife; 2009 BYU devotional http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1819&tid=7#.VKTkvSiCWWw.mailto
Elder Ashton; Process through Change; Conference 1979: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1979/10/progress-through-change?lang=eng
President Faust; The Power to Change; November Ensign 2007: https://www.lds.org/ensign/2007/11/the-power-to-change?lang=eng
