A Hard Lesson In Forgiveness

When I was in jr. high, I was a nerd first class.  I was often chased home from school or beat up on the way there.  Not every day, but enough that I developed a certain preference for chainlink fences because having your face pressed against chainlink doesn't leave splinters the way a wood fence does.  Sometimes survival is all about timing the inevitable.

My arch nemesis, Jeremy Jones, was a football star and all that.  I played volleyball which irritated him even more than my nerdy appearance.  In my art class with Jeremy, the teacher would set us to our tasks and leave.  As soon as the teacher was gone Jeremy would find some means of torture for me.  One day I was wearing a tie, because it was game day, and Jeremy dragged me to the front of the class by my tie and choked me with it until my eyes watered up.  After his petrified audience filed out at the conclusion of the period, his girlfriend Jennifer (a cheerleader) came up and ask if I was ok.  I couldn't understand why she didn't say something during class.

I spent many hours hoping that a cement truck would meet Jeremy on the crosswalk.

Many years later my fiance Emily and I were flying from California to my hometown in Utah with a friend of hers.  While on approach into Salt Lake City, Emily's friend had an asthma attack.  Somehow she had accidentally packed her rescue inhaler under the plane.  The stewardesses did what they could for her while the pilot made an emergency descent into the airport.  As soon as we hit the ground the crew hustled us off the plane to the waiting paramedics.

Everyone stood there motionless while the paramedics worked on her.  A crowd of curious passengers formed around us.  I also stood there motionless; not only out of concern, but also because I instantly recognized the paramedic working diligently to help our friend...Jeremy Jones.  The man I had been harboring hatred for since my youth.  I watched in amazement because he truly seemed compassionate and concerned about her welfare (and appeared to be quite skilled at his craft).  All the hatred I had buried but not forgotten suddenly felt out of place.  He seemed to have changed.

Our friend was fine and back to her old self.  But I walked out of the Salt Lake Airport with a completely different attitude.

I don't know what kind of man Jeremy turned out to be, but I know that he taught me a valuable lesson about forgiveness that day on the tarmac.

Joseph Smith once said, "I have been afraid to ask God to kill my enemies lest some of them, perchance, repent."

What we see in the lives of others around us is a snapshot.  The Lord has given us 70 or so years on this planet precisely because we develop over time and learn from the mistakes we make.  What a shame it is that some of us judge others based solely on a single snapshot.

Doctrine and Covenants 64:10
I the lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.