Of a more serious nature...

I got home from class today, and for some reason I began to think about an old friend of mine. We aren't really friends anymore; in fact, we haven't spoken in over a year. We didn't have a fight or anything, but our conversations died out with some various disagreements we had. I learned a few things about him after we stopped talking, and I felt like I had been mistreated and used. It really upset me for a while, but I just tried to forget about it. It wasn't like I saw him frequently--he lived in Utah.

Well, here I am, a little over a year later, living in Utah. Probably about 35 minutes away from him. The thought occured to me today: What would I do if I ran into him somewhere? What would I say? What if he were to try to give me a hug or something? I don't want to hug him. I don't want to be friendly. I don't want him to just get away with what he did--I want him to know that I know he's a jerk! Then I said to myself, you should be grateful he's a jerk; you grew a lot from that experience and became a lot more independent. I said to myself again, but he treated me like garbage!

And so my thoughts tumbled along, pulling back and forth. And then a scripture popped into my head. Here it comes. Compelled to humility, again.

"I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men."

It's so hard though! I don't want to let him get away with stepping all over me! Then I remembered how the Savior forgave the men who mocked him, and spat on him, and crucified him. He loved them, so why can't I? Why can't I just let this go? I don't hate this person, I even had a lot of good times with him. But he used me! He lied to me! I feel like he needs to know that what he did was wrong!

But that's not up to me. It's the Lord's job to judge. Not mine. My job is to forgive.

I have made up my mind. If I ever see this person, I will be kind to him. I can't say I'll be affectionate or anything, but I won't bring up the issue. I'm going to try to really put this behind me, to really forgive this person. It's going to take a truckload of humble pie. Here it goes.