The general ideas in this post are taken from the 2011 BYU Women's Conference talk given by Russell and Lolly Osguthorpe.
I was always amazed when I read my scriptures when I came upon the story of Pahoran and Moroni. Pahoran was in the city of Zarahemla and the king men (who were bad) were in control of Zarahemla. Moroni writes a letter asking Pahoran for reinforcements to help deal with the kingmen that he is dealing with. Here Pahoran is accused by a frustrated Moroni and called his loyalty into question. Pahoran responds that he is grateful, despite being accused falsely by Moroni, that he wrote and that his words bring him a lot of joy. Instant forgiveness extended to Moroni.
Laman and Lemuel, the two brother's of Nephi, were corrected by Nephi about their disobedience. This brought them to a stage of anger where they bound Nephi with cords and left him to die and be eaten by wild beasts. Anger is usually the key emotion that brings about bad behavior, vengeful behavior, and unforgiveness. And if you understand anger you will know that it is a secondary emotion made up of fear and sadness. Okay so moving along....The Lord taught us that not only should we not want to kill someone but that we should not be found angry with another or the Lord's anger will be directed toward them. Laman and Lemuel were sorrowful after a daughter of Ishamael and her mother did plead with Laman and Lemuel to become humble. It worked! They went to Nephi and begged of him his forgiveness. One minute they want to kill Nephi and then the next they were begging his forgiveness. This was a great miracle. However, maybe even a greater miracle was Nephi's response.
Now some of the great qualities of Nephi were....he forgave them immediately. Did he become defensive? No! Did he throw it in their faces what they had done? No! Did he tell his friends and family of the things they did wrong and to ignore them? No! Did he hold it against them? No! Did he continue to bring it up time and again in the future? No! He "frankly forgave" them. He was left in the desert to be devoured by wild beasts. And yet, "he frankly forgave" them. Are you with me? How many times have you been bound and hung out to be eaten by gnarly wild beasts? Could you have forgiven them? At first, I though frankly, was a word that meant barely or coldly, etc. But the Osguthorpe's explained it differently. He forgave them instantly, without conditions, no questions asked. The word "frank" originally meant free. Unconditional; without restraint; without anxiety. He forgave them freely!
And now finally, Chris Williams... his story can be found below in this video. I know I've posted this before but it is moving and powerful.
But the bottom line is there are some commonalities in all of these cases of forgiveness. They all forgave "frankly." Meaning, without condition, thinking first of the offender before themselves. Nephi thought first of Laman and Lemuel, not about his being set out to die. Pahoran thought first of Moroni and his people, not that he had just been falsely accused and his loyalty questioned. And Chris Williams? He thought first of the young man who had taken 3 of his family members from him.
In each case, not one of these examples, put conditions on the forgiveness. Not one of them, threw it in the others face. Not one of them didn't seek to love the others home.
Please remember the post on forgiving others just means repenting of not loving them in the first place. I'm grateful for such examples in my life. I have failed at forgiving like these great examples many times and grateful for them to help show me the way.
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