Forgive others
Forgive self
The divine attributes of mercy and forgiveness were topics of President Thomas S. Monson's Sunday morning conference address.
President Monson, first counselor in the First Presidency, said the cruelty of war seems to bring forth hatred toward others and disregard for human life. Yet, in such degradation, at times "there shines forth the inextinguishable light of mercy."
He spoke of soldiers in two wars, one who was the recipient of an enemy's mercy, and the other who was merciful to the wounded in the enemy's camp.
The first was an American soldier, who, fighting in the invasion of Normandy, looked up from his foxhole to see an enemy soldier's gun barrel leveled at his heart. Instead of killing him, the enemy took him prisoner, thereby sparing his life. The American, recalling the incident on the 50th anniversary of the battle, said: " `Such mercy I shall remember forever.' "
The second soldier President Monson spoke of was Richard Rowland Kirkland, a 19-year-old Confederate sergeant during the American Civil War. After listening through the night to the cries of Union soldiers who had been wounded as they were "mowed down by a scythe of shot" by Confederate troops, Kirkland asked for and received permission to take water to the suffering soldiers.
President Monson said Kirkland's Christlike compassion made his name synonymous with mercy for a post-Civil War generation, both North and South.
Speaking of "the greatest act of mercy ever known," President Monson quoted Alma 42:15: "The plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also."
"From the springboard of such knowledge," said President Monson, "we ask ourselves, `Why, then, do we see on every side those instances where people decline to forgive one another and show forth the cleansing act of mercy and forgiveness? What blocks the way for such healing balm to cleanse human wounds? Is it stubbornness? Could it be pride? Maybe hatred has yet to melt and disappear."
He told of having read of an elderly man who disclosed at the funeral of his brother that the two of them had not spoken to each other for 62 years, although they shared a one-room cabin, divided in half with a chalk line neither had crossed after a quarrel. "What a human tragedy - all for the want of mercy and forgiveness," President Monson said.
"At times, the need for mercy can be found close to home, and in simple situations." President Monson spoke of such an incident in his family, in which a 4-year-old grandson, Jeffrey, accidently erased an elaborate and ingenious design of a city his older brother, Alan, had worked out on the family's computer. When Alan discovered the program had been erased, he angrily approached Jeffrey, who blurted out, "Remember, Alan, Jesus said, `Don't hurt little boys!' " President Monson said Alan smiled. "Mercy was received."
President Monson said there are those who torture themselves through their inability to show mercy and to forgive others some supposed offense or slight, however small it may be. Such an attitude is destructive and can canker the soul and ruin one's life, he said. He noted that some cannot forgive themselves and that that attitude is even more destructive.
He quoted President Hugh B. Brown who once advised telling such an individual that he should not persist in remembering that which the Lord has said He is willing to forget. (See Isa. 1:18, an D&C 58:42.)
"At times a small mistake can fester and bring distress and heartache to him or her who harbors and dwells on the matter, leaving it uncorrected," President Monson said. He told of a woman who, 13 years ago, kept a key to the room she and her husband stayed in at the Hotel Utah. (The Church owns the building, now the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.) The woman mailed the key to President Monson, with a note of apology.
In his reply to the woman, he noted that though the key itself weighed very little, apparently it had been a heavy burden for her to carry for a long time.
President Monson told the conference congregation: "Should you or I have erred or spoken harshly to another, it is good to take steps to straighten out the matter and to move onward with our lives."
One of the most touching examples of mercy, President Monson said, is the experience in the life of Jesus when the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman taken in adultery. They said that the law of Moses commanded that such should be stoned, and asked Jesus what He had to say.
" `But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, . . . and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. . . . And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. . . .
" `And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.' (John 8:1-11.)
"The sands of time quickly erased what the Savior had written, but forever will be remembered the mercy He showed," President Monson said.
He quoted Matt. 15:7, in which Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy."
