By Jared Harding Wilson
We live in a world that rarely forgets. With digital footprints, social media archives, and our own highly sensitive internal memories, it can feel like our past is constantly trailing a few inches behind us. Whether it’s a failure from a decade ago, a broken relationship, or a deeply ingrained habit we are still fighting to conquer, the human mind has a stubborn tendency to look backward.
But looking back with longing, regret, or bitterness changes the way we march forward.
When we refuse to untie ourselves from yesterday’s dark corners, we inadvertently lock ourselves out of today’s light. True spiritual progression requires us to embrace a beautiful, liberating truth: the Atonement of Jesus Christ was designed not just to clean our slates, but to completely unburden our backs.
The Danger of Wallowing in Yesterday
In a powerful BYU Devotional address titled “Remember Lot’s Wife”: Faith Is for the Future, President Jeffrey R. Holland tackled this exact human tendency. He reminded us that there is a destructive nature to constantly relivening old heartbreaks or errors. He taught:
“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.”
He then delivered a sentence that cuts straight to the core of how we must handle our past:
“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.”
When President Holland uses the legal phrase “cease and desist,” he isn’t offering a casual suggestion; he is issuing a spiritual injunction. To wallow in the past is to act as though the sacrifice of the Savior was somehow incomplete—as if His grace was sufficient for everyone else, but not quite powerful enough to cover our specific blunders or the specific pain someone else inflicted on us
Why We Must Forgive Ourselves
For many of us, the hardest person to forgive is the one looking back at us in the mirror. We readily preach the doctrine of repentance to friends and family, yet we build a mental prison for ourselves, replaying old scenes and wondering how we could have been so foolish or weak.
This self-condemnation is a favorite tool of the adversary. If he cannot stop us from repenting, he will try to convince us that our repentance didn’t take. He wants us to believe that the stains are permanent.
But the language of the scriptures is absolute. The Lord does not say He will place our sins on probation; He says, “He who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:42). If the Master of the Universe chooses to close the book on our past mistakes, it is an act of spiritual arrogance for us to keep reopening it.
The Boundless Reach of Christ’s Healing Power
If you are carrying a burden that feels too heavy, too repetitive, or too embarrassing to bring to the light, consider the definitive promise left by President Boyd K. Packer in his landmark address, The Brilliant Morning of Forgiveness:
“Save for the exception of the very few who defect to perdition, there is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no apostasy, no crime exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness. That is the promise of the Atonement of Christ.”
Look closely at that list. No habit. No addiction. No transgression. No crime.
There are no asterisks in the plan of redemption. Christ’s capacity to heal does not hit a ceiling when it encounters an especially messy human life. The Atonement leaves no tracks and no traces. What it fixes is truly fixed.
The Savior’s Parable of Restitution
President Packer often shared a beautiful perspective on how the Savior bridges the gap when we feel entirely incapable of repairing the damage of the past. Imagine a person who carelessly or rebelliously causes a massive, devastating fire. The damage is done; homes are destroyed, lives are disrupted, and the landscape is charred.
The individual sits in the ashes, utterly overwhelmed by godly sorrow, knowing they can never rebuild what they broke. They don’t have the money, the time, or the strength to make full restitution.
In that moment of absolute helplessness, the Savior steps forward. He doesn’t minimize the fire, nor does He say the damage doesn’t matter. Instead, He says, “I will pay the debt. I will rebuild the homes. I will plant the trees. I will heal the wounds you cannot heal, and I will fix what you broke and cannot fix.”
This is the very purpose of Jesus Christ. He doesn’t just forgive the arsonist; He restores the landscape. When we are willing to hand over our broken pieces—and when we are willing to let Him heal the wounds others have inflicted on us—we witness the miraculous power of His grace.
Moving Forward into the Light
Forgiving ourselves and others is not about pretending the past never happened. It means the memory of the mistake ceases to be the defining feature of our identity. Like Alma the Younger, we may still remember what we did, but we will no longer be “harrowed up” by the pain of it.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is fundamentally forward-looking. It is a message of becoming, of renewal, and of clean mornings. Faith is meant for the future.
If you are still tied to an old mistake—whether it belongs to you or to someone who hurt you—choose today to cut the rope. Cease and desist from wallowing in the gray ash of yesterday. Let the Savior take the weight of what you cannot fix, and step boldly into the brilliant morning of His forgiveness.
Images created by Gemini by Jared Harding Wilson. All rights reserved.
Discover more from Hike Stars On Earth
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
