Redemption

Yesterday, I had a beautiful moment talking with my father. We talked about the nature of parenting and how the success of a parent is reflected in the type of person your children become. He told me he thinks of me as a particularly grateful child - grateful to be alive, not wanting to be a financial burden on the family, feeling guilty that they had to sell our childhood home to put me through college.

I was shocked. I've never been described as grateful by my parents. I've always felt they think of me as ungrateful - or lazy or spoiled or selfish or stubborn or unhelpful or uncooperative or disrespectful. Because, truth be told, I have been all of those things - more so when I was a child/teenager, but even now to a lesser degree. I knew they loved me because they had to, but I didn't think it was me, the person, that they loved, just the unconditional love that a parent has for their child.

Through that one comment, I was able to see more clearly what my dad saw when he looked at me. Not a perfect child, but a very good one. One who was trying hard to be a good daughter. One who loved and appreciated her parents. One who was no longer so belligerent or uncooperative as she once was. I was forgiven, I was allowed to reach a new potential, and I recognized that I am no longer the child I was.

As we forgive each other and ourselves, we can, as I did in that moment, love ourselves more freely and free ourselves from the shackles of who we once were. That spark of divinity that is beneath the surface of all of us shines through and we become something more wonderful. I could not feel this forgiveness so freely in my life if it were not for God's grace, and I will always proclaim, as Alma, "what joy, and what marvelous light" (Alma 36:20), fill my soul when I humbly ask God for forgiveness for the many small ways I am daily falling short..