I
have a confession. I have broken the
Word of Wisdom.
 |
| Source |
To find out more about the LDS Church’s Word of Wisdom, click here.
I
was 7 years old and in 2nd grade.
 |
| Can you see me? I'm hard to spot because I look like a boy. |
 |
| Let's just say the pixie cut didn't do much for me. |
My teacher taught us how to make mugs out of pottery. She decided to throw a tea party after they
came out of the kiln and were glazed.
I
knew that as Mormons we weren’t supposed to drink tea, but I really loved my
teacher Mrs. Fox
 |
| This is a picture I drew of her. |
and I was excited to drink out of something I had made with my own
hands. I also had no idea how to say no
to my teacher. I was conflicted.
The
fateful day arrived. We all sat at our
desks where our lumpy, crooked mugs resting on a small, square white napkin
waiting for the teacher to pour the hot liquid so that we could drink. My stomach was in knots as I waited for my
turn. I still had no idea what I was
going to do.
Mrs.
Fox poured the tea into my little brown cup and moved on to the next
student. I sat there staring at the amber-colored
beverage. Maybe I just won’t drink it. I thought. But then she noticed me and said, “Heather,
drink your tea.”
I
quickly obeyed and took a sip. It was
disgusting, but I didn’t want to get in trouble so I drank the whole
thing.
That
afternoon I came home from school and walked in the door. I burst into tears and told my mother of the
awful sin that I had just committed. She
didn’t say a word but just stared at me with a horrified look on her face. I was hoping she would comfort me but instead
she just said, “Why on earth would you do that?
I can’t believe you drank TEA!”
I
was afraid that I had just started down a path of breaking the Word of Wisdom. In my future I saw smoking tobacco, getting
drunk from alcohol, maybe even eating fruit out of its season! One look from my mother confirmed that would indeed
be my fate.
“Well,”
she said, “At least you aren’t baptized yet.
That will make you clean again.”
And
she was right. I still had a few months
yet before I was to be baptized. All I
had to do was live in this awful state for a few months and hope I didn’t
die. Then I could put on a white dress,
get baptized, and never mess up ever again.
My
baptism day arrived and I could not have been more excited. I was finally going to be able to be washed
cleaned and put my wild tea-drinking days behind me. I will
be perfect from now on, I told myself, no
more sinning for me.
 |
| This picture was taken near the time I got baptized. |
Less than 24 hours later, I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting when my sister said something really mean to me. I used the only defense I had against her. She bit her nails, but I let mine grow long. I had learned the best way to get her to stop being mean was to dig my fingernails into her skin because she couldn’t do it back. So I reached over, grabbed her forearm, and dug in really hard. As soon as I did it, I realized that my quest for perfection had ended. I hadn’t even made it 24 hours! Now what was I supposed to do?
Now,
there was another Mormon girl sitting in this very same Sacrament Meeting. She too had had an experience with tea in her
classroom. Her teacher had decided to
have an international food tasting party.
Each student was to bring something exotic from another country to share
with the class. Everyone was to try
everything.
As she stood in line to sample the foods, she saw that someone had brought tea. Like me, she also knew that Mormons don’t drink tea. Another Mormon girl stood behind her in line and whispered, “What are we going to do? We can’t drink the tea.”
“That’s okay,” she said, “we can have the tea now and just repent later.” That’s what they did.
As she stood in line to sample the foods, she saw that someone had brought tea. Like me, she also knew that Mormons don’t drink tea. Another Mormon girl stood behind her in line and whispered, “What are we going to do? We can’t drink the tea.”
“That’s okay,” she said, “we can have the tea now and just repent later.” That’s what they did.
Can
you see how much these stories are alike?
We both were Mormon.
We both knew about the Word of Wisdom.
We both were told to drink tea in our
classroom at school.
We both drank the tea.
We both used repentance afterwards.
And we both used repentance incorrectly.
You
see, both of us saw repentance as our backup plan.
Elder
Lynn G. Robbins in his latest General Conference talk “Until Seventy Times Seven” tells us:
Repentance isn't His backup plan in the event we might fail. Repentance IS His plan, knowing that we will.
We
were brought here on earth so that we could make mistakes. Lehi explains it to his son Jacob this
way.
For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; (2 Nephi 2:11)
All
of us, not just my 7-year-old self are going to be faced with opposition,
temptations, and hardships. And we are
not always going to choose correctly.
It’s what President Nelson calls “a lifetime curriculum.”*
Elder
Robbins also tells us that our success isn’t by being able to go
from failure to failure, but to grow from failure to failure.
How
do we do that exactly? How do we grow
from our failures?
Moroni
teaches us how. In Moroni 6:8 we read:
That’s the key. In order
to grow from our failures, we need to repent with real intent and to seek
forgiveness, that’s how we are forgiven.
But as oft as they repented and sought forgiveness, with real intent, they were forgiven.
Unfortunately,
it’s actually pretty easy to repent the way I did.
We
commit a sin and then feel like we are forever unworthy. We can’t turn to the Lord and ask for
forgiveness because we are now unacceptable.
I had looked for my baptism to make me clean and was then determined to
never make a mistake again. I did not
realize that I could immediately repent and ask for forgiveness no matter what
I had done.
It
can also be easy to repent the way my friend did.
She committed a sin with the forethought to repent of it later. It reminds me of when Nephi warned us what it would be like in our day. He told us people would say:
Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin; … God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God.
(2 Nephi 28:8)
She committed a sin with the forethought to repent of it later. It reminds me of when Nephi warned us what it would be like in our day. He told us people would say:
Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin; … God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God.
(2 Nephi 28:8)
And
more recently, Elder Dallin H. Oaks warned us of this too.
"We are concerned that some people have a very lax attitude toward sin. Some young people say, 'I'll just have a few free ones, and then I'll repent quickly and go on a mission [or get married in the temple], and everything will be all right.'
Young people are not the only ones with a lax attitude toward sin. We know of mature members of the Church who commit serious transgressions knowingly and deliberately, relying on their supposed ability to repent speedily and be 'as good as new.' Such persons want the present convenience or enjoyment of sin and the future effects of righteousness, in that order. They want to experience the sin but avoid its effects."
"We are concerned that some people have a very lax attitude toward sin. Some young people say, 'I'll just have a few free ones, and then I'll repent quickly and go on a mission [or get married in the temple], and everything will be all right.'
Young people are not the only ones with a lax attitude toward sin. We know of mature members of the Church who commit serious transgressions knowingly and deliberately, relying on their supposed ability to repent speedily and be 'as good as new.' Such persons want the present convenience or enjoyment of sin and the future effects of righteousness, in that order. They want to experience the sin but avoid its effects."
As
I think about these two very different attitudes it feels like a paradox. On the one hand, don’t ever feel too
unworthy to repent, but don’t use it as a failsafe either. I’m reminded of what
Rabbi Simcha Bunem
did when faced with a different paradox.
He said that he always carried two slips of paper, one in each
pocket. When he’s feeling too prideful
he pulls out a piece of paper from one pocket, when he’s feeling of little
worth, he pulls out the paper from his other pocket.
We could do something similar with repentance. Our slips of paper could read:
- Your sins can be as white as snow; (see Isaiah 16:18)
- Do not excuse your sins, (see Alma 42:30)
We can read the first one if we ever feel like our sins are too great and we
can’t repent. The second one when we
feel that our sins are so minor we don’t need to repent.
And
I would need a third pocket, to hold another slip of paper that reads:
“Repentance
is not the backup plan, it IS the plan.”
In
our last October General Conference, Elder Stephen W. Owen gave a talk titled "Repentance is Always Positive." He points out that it is only through true repentance that we access the
power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Without it, it’s what he calls “miserable behavior modification.”
I
think as humans it is easy to fall into the trap of miserable behavior
modification. We try on our own to stop
or start a behavior. We fail, we try
again, we fail again. If we stay focused
on our efforts and our inability to do it right, it’s easy to see why it’s
called miserable.
Elder
Robbins reminds us that we can receive continual access to forgiveness by
partaking of the Sacrament every week.
And thankfully, there is no limit to how many times we can come back and
makes this covenant anew. As he points
out, it is more than seventy times seven.
We don’t walk into the chapel where we have to show a punch card that
expires after the 490th punch.
So
what does true repentance, or repentance with real intent, actually look
like?
I
think we can turn to the Sacrament prayers for the answer.
To read the prayers offered at an LDS Sacrament Meeting worship service, click here.
For more information on what it is like to attend a Sacrament Meeting or how to find one in your local area, click here.
To read the prayers offered at an LDS Sacrament Meeting worship service, click here.
For more information on what it is like to attend a Sacrament Meeting or how to find one in your local area, click here.
While
I like to study what is in the Sacrament Prayers, I also like to observe what
is not in them. Have you noticed that
when we make this covenant at no point do we promise not to mess up, or to be
perfect? For years I had thought of
partaking the Sacrament a little like this:
“Okay, this week I’m going to be better than I was last week. Last week was a disaster, but not next week. Next week I’m going to be the kind of daughter you’ll be proud of. I’m going to be obedient and get everything done I need to.”
Then the following week, “Hi, I’m back. So last week was a disaster, but not next week. I’ll be so much better next week, just you wait.”
“Okay, this week I’m going to be better than I was last week. Last week was a disaster, but not next week. Next week I’m going to be the kind of daughter you’ll be proud of. I’m going to be obedient and get everything done I need to.”
Then the following week, “Hi, I’m back. So last week was a disaster, but not next week. I’ll be so much better next week, just you wait.”
And
again and again until I don’t even want to reflect on my previous week because
it’s too depressing. Definitely what
Elder Owen calls miserable behavior modification.
So
let’s look at what we actually are promising in the Sacrament Prayer.
…are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son
One
of the key words in my mind is the word “willing.” Thinking of the sacrament table as an altar
helps me think about how I lay up my will on the altar and in exchange I take
on the will of Christ, or take upon me his name. As the bread and water symbolize his flesh
and blood, I symbolically internalize them to show that I want my will to be
His will.
And what exactly is it that I’m willing to do?
And what exactly is it that I’m willing to do?
…and
always remember Him and keep his commandments.
I
spent about a year studying the difference between obeying commandments and
keeping them.
To read what I discovered, click here.
To
me, keeping the commandments means we treasure them, we value them, we give
them our utmost and top priority. We may
not always obey them correctly 100% of the time, but we want to. We want to because it’s how we show Heavenly
Father we love Him.
I submit to you this point to ponder.
I submit to you this point to ponder.
It is
much easier to learn to keep the commandments by repenting when we break them than
by obeying them perfectly all the time.
If
you aren’t sure if that could be true, ask the Pharisees and Sadducees how well
it worked out for them in their quest to be perfectly obedient.
I also think that it’s much easier to make this promise while sitting quietly in a church dressed in our Sunday best, than when we are stuck in rush hour traffic on a Thursday afternoon. But it is possible to always remember Him and keep His commandments, and we come back week after week to remind ourselves that it is.
I also think that it’s much easier to make this promise while sitting quietly in a church dressed in our Sunday best, than when we are stuck in rush hour traffic on a Thursday afternoon. But it is possible to always remember Him and keep His commandments, and we come back week after week to remind ourselves that it is.
As
we repent with real intent, recognizing the power of the Atonement of Jesus
Christ, and believing that we can become clean again, what are we promised in
return?
…that they may always have his Spirit to be with them.
We
are promised forgiveness.
This
is what is so beautiful to me about the Sacrament service. This is when we can feel the sanctification
of the Holy Ghost testifying to us that we are clean once again. We are told that we may ALWAYS have his
Spirit to be with us. We always can be
forgiven and sanctified. Always. Not 490 times, but always.
Elder
Owen tells us that repentance is a lifelong pursuit. Elder Robbins tells us that our change will
be imperceptible from day to day, it’s only when looking back that we’ll see
how much we’ve grown.
It’s
been over 40 years since I sat on that school bus bumping along the New Mexico dirt
roads feeling guilty for what I had done.
It didn’t know it at the time but I was growing. I was growing because of my failure.
If
I could somehow climb inside a time machine and visit with that little seven-year-old
Heather, I’d wipe away her tear-stained cheeks and say this.
“Not
only can you repent, but you can be forgiven.
For this is how we become like Christ, let me show you how.”
Until Seventy Times Seven by Elder Lynn G. Robbins
Repentance is Always Positive by Elder Stephen W. Owen
Even as Christ Forgives You, So Also Do Ye by Elder Larry J. Echo Hawk
Sin and Suffering by Elder Dallin H. Oaks
If you liked this article, you might like these:
*Russell M. Nelson, in Dallin H. Oaks and Neil L. Andersen, “Repentance” (address given at the seminar for new mission presidents, June 26, 2015), 11
This is not an official publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Comments