To err is human; to forgive, divine

I was asked to speak in church this past Sunday, which was also Father's day.  When I asked what the topic was, I was told, "Well, you can say a few words about your dad, and then I would like you to speak on the General Conference talk by Elder Craig Cardon, 'The Savior Wants to Forgive', which he gave in April conference."  I had about two weeks to prepare.  I did a lot of thinking and pondering during that time.  I read the talk several times and I had a lot of ideas float through my head.  Some stayed and made it on paper, others did not seem as important to the content of my talk.  The one thing that prominently lingered and I ended up focusing my talk around was this:  The Savior wants to forgive--some of the most easily remembered Bible stories of things he did during his mortality are ones of him forgiving, healing, making whole.

With that central thought in mind, here is the general idea of my talk:

The title father is sacred and eternal.

Why Stay Morally Clean--Elder Boyd K Packer--council of the twelve
July 1972
"It should have great meaning that of all the titles of respect and honor and admiration that could be given him, God himself, he who is the highest of all, chose to be addressed simply as Father."

The Savior Wants to Forgive--Elder Craig A Cardon--of the seventy
Our Heavenly Father knows what we are facing, that we all sin and “come short of the glory of God” again and again. He sent His Son, who “knoweth the weakness of man and how to succor them who are tempted.” His Son teaches us to “pray always that [we] enter not into temptation.” We are told to “cry unto [God] for mercy; for he is mighty to save.” The Savior commands us to repent and to forgive. And although repentance is not easy, as we strive with all our hearts to obey His gospel, He gives this promise: “Verily I say unto you, notwithstanding [your] sins, my bowels are filled with compassion towards [you]. I will not utterly cast [you] off; and in the day of wrath I will remember mercy.” The Savior wants to forgive.

Not only does the Savior want to forgive, it seems the whole motivation of his mortality was to forgive.

In general conference just last October, President Monson counseled:

“We need to bear in mind that people can change. They can put behind them bad habits. They can repent from transgressions. …

“… We can help them to overcome their shortcomings. We must develop the capacity to see men not as they are at present but as they may become.”

Think for a moment of the stories of Jesus... the woman taken in adultery (neither do I condemn thee), one of the ten lepers (thy faith hath made thee whole), the man afflicted with a palsy lowered through a roof by his friends (thy sins are forgiven thee), the woman diseased with an issue of blood twelve years (thy faith hath made thee whole).  Jesus was constantly healing and forgiving, he displayed the capacity to see men "as they may become". Even at the close of his mortality he pled with the Father to forgive those who were crucifying him.

How did Christ carry out his motivation to forgive?  A major evidence was mercy.

          3 Nephi 17: 7    Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy

            D&C 101: 9  Verily I say unto you, notwithstanding their sins, my bowels are filled with compassion towards them. I will not utterly cast them off; and in the day of wrath I will remember mercy.

            Alma 41: 14-15  Therefore, my son, see that you are merciful unto your brethren; deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually; and if ye do all these things then shall ye receive your reward; yea, ye shall have mercy restored unto you again; ye shall have justice restored unto you again; ye shall have a righteous judgment restored unto you again; and ye shall have good rewarded unto you again.
             For that which ye do send out shall return unto you again, and be restored;

            Psalm 37: 21  The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous sheweth mercy, and giveth.

            Colossians 3: 12-15   12 Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
             13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
             14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
             15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful

The Savior wants to forgive.  He was very specific about his purpose for coming to this world as our Savior.

Moroni 8: 8  Listen to the words of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold, I came into the world not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no physician, but they that are sick;

As the ultimate healer, our Savior has told us (in D&C 64:10), "I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men."

This may seem difficult to us, yet while in mortality who did the Savior NOT forgive?  He showed us to do as he did -- forgive all.  And he showed us it is possible to forgive all men, even while we are mortal.

Elder Cardon includes the account of Peter asking how many times he should forgive

Providing an opportunity for the Savior to enlighten our understanding, Peter once inquired how many times he should forgive his brother and then asked, “Till seven times?” Surely that would be more than enough. But the Savior’s response opened wide the door to His merciful heart: “I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”

The Lord loves us and wants us to understand His willingness to forgive. On more than 20 occasions in the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord told those to whom He was speaking, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” or similar words. On about half of those occasions, the Lord’s words were directed specifically to the Prophet Joseph Smith, sometimes addressing him alone, sometimes with others. The first of these was recorded in 1830, the last in 1843. Thus, over a span of many years, the Lord told Joseph repeatedly, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.”

While Joseph was not “guilty of any great or malignant sins,” we do well to remember that with very few exceptions, the Lord’s “seventy times seven” does not limit forgiveness according to the seriousness of the sin.

While speaking to elders assembled in Kirtland, the Lord said, “I will that ye should overcome the world; wherefore I will have compassion upon you.” The Lord knows our weakness and the eternal consequences of “the world” upon imperfect men and women. The word wherefore in this verse is His affirmation that it is only by virtue of His compassion that we may ultimately “overcome the world.”

Christ showed us the key to our ability to consistently forgive is to
[become] as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3: 19) 

The Savior wants to forgive.  Knowing this can help our submission to our Heavenly Father become easier as we remember the "inasmuch as you have forgiven one another your trespasses, even so I, the Lord, forgive you." (D&C 82:1)

The Savior wants to forgive.  We should want to forgive also.

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For some time I have been pondering and thinking about what motivated the Savior while he was in mortality.  Having been asked what motivates me, and not being able to really give an answer of something that consistently motivates me in life, I decided that if I can't find what drives me to do stuff, then I need to find an example to follow and implement similar motivation in my own life.  Previously I had determined that the Savior seemed motivated at least by mercy.  After preparing for this talk I added the connected motivation of forgiveness.

If the Savior's actions were motivated by at least mercy and forgiveness, I can begin to see why he was considered worthy to and capable of completely enduring the atonement.  And why God the Father could say, "Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased... "

The Surprise Called Death

Today I learned that one of my friends is finishing his mortal journey and preparing to pass through the veil to those waiting on the other side for him.  Learning of his near-death situation is quite a surprise to me because I was blessed with an opportunity to see him within the last 12 months and he was healthy at the time.  Clearly I have not kept in frequent communication with him since that time, and it makes me a little sad to think of what these last few months with illness have been like for him.  Has he had better friends than myself to comfort him?  I certainly hope so.

This sudden news is making me think of life and death.  Death often helps me to focus on my own life and how I'm living and if I'm prepared for death at any moment.  But this time I am reflecting on my life and if I'm living so I have no regrets in how I treat others who pass before me.  You see, before I saw my friend several months ago I had been out of contact with him for a few years.  Suddenly, one day I thought of him and wondered if I could reestablish contact, so I looked him up on the internet.  Luckily I found just enough information to email him.  So I sent him an email and his response made me sad.  He was excited that I had found and contacted him, but mentioned that he was having a hard time socially, especially with females (he is not married but desires to be). Why the hard time?  Because too many people are too shallow and see just well enough to judge based on what they see.  What do they see with my friend?  Well, he is blind and they see blindness as a burden.  They may not actively treat him like a burden, but they see his visual impairment as such.

When I first met and became friends with Chad, he was full of life and full of excitement for life.  I enjoyed his vision of life, but even I was so focused on myself and where I wanted my life to go that I eventually lost contact with him when I moved away.  Knowing his excitement for life, I hoped he would find friends who would fill the needs for friendship that were left an open void as so many of his current friends moved on and I hoped he would be blessed to find his eternal companion.  After several years, I reestablished contact...only to find he had been afflicted with so many other "friends" who had been like me, focused so well on myself.  Fortunately I took an opportunity to visit him, to share a few moments of genuine friendship, and to hopefully bring some joy to his day.  Tonight I look back on that day and on my choices to reignite our friendship and I am grateful I did.  As I think on the time of his life in which I knew him, I do not have regrets about the kind of friend I tried to be, especially in trying to not see his blindness as a burden.  I don't think Chad saw his visual impairment as a burden because he lived independently for many years, he learned to play the guitar, he earned an associates degree and began further education in music therapy, he displayed unconditional love towards those around him, he helped maintain a business in making several products with raspberries, in short, he looked to the future and took confident steps to get himself to where he wanted to be.

I will be sad at Chad's passing to the next life and eternally grateful I knew him for the short time I was blessed to have him as a friend and to be his friend.

Dinosaur Train Wreck

This post is a picture parade of my attempt to make cake pops (instead of a larger birthday cake) for  my son's birthday.  He loves the show "Dinosaur Train" and I think cake pops are very tasty so I decided to combine the two if I could.  I found a few blogs with ideas of how to make them look good, so I got the supplies and made the cake pops.  I told my husband I wanted to post these on my blog, to share my attempts at being a creative mom and he said I should make sure to label it a dinosaur trainwreck.  Some of them may not look so great, but they all tasted delicious!!

These are the tools and decorations I started with...minus the cake mix and frosting.

 




 The cake pops are to be refrigerated for a few hours after they are formed to help them keep a firm shape while they are dipped in the chocolate coating.  I guess I made them too big because the first few I dipped began to break away from the stick.  The cake ball literally began breaking and it didn't dip as nicely or completely as I thought they would.  As you can see in the photo below, I tried one suggestion I read to dip the stick in the melted chocolate, then stick it in the cake ball and let it cool to help hold the stick in place and to discourage the ball from sliding down or off the stick.  Instead of the stick staying nicely in place, once I dipped the cake balls they got so heavy that the stick and chunk of orange chocolate just broke the ball apart. 

As you can see, I also had to make sure they tasted okay (notice the broken ball with some missing) since they weren't beginning to look all that great.

After only a few failed attempts I decided I needed to do something different before they all were ruined beyond repair.  So I removed all the sticks, held them on a fork and poured/spooned melted orange chocolate over them.  Luckily with this method I only had a few fall off the fork into the melted chocolate, but once I scooped them back out they still had the chocolate coating.

After I set them on the waxed paper to cool, I quickly added the diamond and eye decorations so they would at least be stuck to the chocolate and not just later fall off the hardened orange chocolate surface.

Finished dipping and adding little decorations

I added the black gel and Voila! Don't they look great?



A closeup of one of the better looking ones



Buddy with one that somehow lost an eye



I think this one got a tongue...it was one of the first failed attempts so I wanted to give it a little humor



One of the weirder-looking dinosaurs, but still delicious to eat!



I did make one cupcake so the birthday boy could have a little cake to stick the candles in to blow out.  I included the Buddy character so you could see what it's supposed to resemble.

And here is Buddy with a cake pop with teeth...

And one with a smile...

In the end, my son was completely happy with all of them and he recognized them as the much desired Buddy cakes for his birthday.

My husband may have thought it was a train wreck for not working out as originally planned and because they turned out a little rough around the edges, but I thought instead of a wreck it was more of a detour...I mean just look at that smile! He loved them and only wanted more.