“Love brings everyone home.” Laura Lane from ‘I Touch the Heavens’
Do you remember the story of Little Red Riding Hood?
She was a girl whose parents sent her off into the forest to take a basket of goodies to her grandmother who was frail and sick.
Her parents knew it could be dangerous in the forest. They cautioned her to stay on the path and not talk to strangers. She agreed and off she went.
But once she was in the forest, there were pretty flowers to pick and soon enough even with good intentions, she soon strayed from the path and next thing she knew she was being enticed by the big bad wolf.
In the end after her scary adventure, the lumberjack thankfully came along to save not only her but grandma as well. And that was the end of the story.
But now I want you to imagine what came after.
The lumberjack takes Little Red Riding Hood home and tells her parents everything that has happened.
Little Red Riding Hood knows she has disobeyed by leaving the path and she feels ashamed. She knows she has made a mess of things.
She is even traumatized by the encounter with the wolf and being eaten.
Let’s talk about her parents. They are saddened to hear what has happened to their little girl.
But their first response is to scoop her up into their arms. They are so happy to have her home safe and sound. They hug and hold her and reassure her that everything will be okay now.
They know she will need to go back into the woods again, but they trust her that she will learn from the experience and will be able to take more goodies to grandma again.
They are loving, kind, generous and compassionate. They encourage Little Red Riding Hood and teach her more lessons that will hopefully keep her safe in her travels.
Now why do I tell you this story? Now think of yourself as Little Red Riding Hood and your Heavenly Parents have sent you into the woods – to experience this mortal life, to share goodness with those less fortunate than you.
But it is so easy to get distracted in this life and there are dangers all around you. What happens when you stray from the path? When the dangers creep up on you unaware?
Do you know that there is Lumberjack ready and waiting to hear your cries, who will overcome the wolf and take you safely home?
Elder Dieter F. Uchdorf gave a talk in April 2007 where he spoke about the “Point of Safe Return”.
The Lord always invites us to return to Him and I would like to focus on the Return!
The Nephites had an experience that I would like to share with you. It was just after the Saviour was crucified in Jerusalem. The people had experienced terrible earthquakes, fires, storms, whirlwinds, cities sank or were burned and then they were left in blinding darkness for 3 days.
Everyone mourned the destruction. It was during this time while the people mourned all they had lost, that the voice of the Saviour comes to them and he says “Will ye not now return unto me and repent of your sins and be converted that I may heal you?… Whosoever will come, him will I receive and blessed are those come unto me”
One day, as I read these verses in 3 Nephi, I wondered why when the people were in so much pain and suffering so much, why would the Saviour call them to repentance when they are struggling with the traumatic events that had just happened?
Remember Little Red Riding Hood, I couldn’t imagine her parents telling her off as soon as they opened the door. Why would the Saviour?
Whenever I don’t understand something like this, I have learned to look more closely at the words used in the scriptures. Is there something there that I’m missing?
First the Saviour says – Return unto me
Then he says Repent, then be converted
What I discovered was that the word converted, when you look at the etymology or root meaning, it means to turn around.
The origin of the words sin and repent are actually old archery terms. Sin means to miss the mark and repent means to return to the mark.
So essentially the Saviour was telling the people, not once, not twice but three times to return to him and they would be healed.
When we, like the Nephites, have experienced trauma, the Saviour asks us to turn around; to return to him so he can heal us.
Author and Speaker Mastin Kipp in his 5 Stages of Healing Emotional Trauma talks about how “Emotional healing comes from safe connection and empathy and acceptance.”
That is what the Saviour offers us. All we need to do is come to him, to return our gaze, our focus to him and he will love us, understand all we have gone through, accept us and heal us. That is how love heals.
Kipp explains: “What isn’t traumatizing for most people is the specific [traumatic] event, but what happens afterwards.
Meaning, did you [keep it to] yourself?
Did your [friends] or your family sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened?
Or was there [someone] that could understand what you went through?”
Was there a sense of safely, security and feeling protected?
Remember Little Red Riding Hood? Her parents would have picked her up and held her and comforted her.
Kipp continues, “What was your emotional resiliency before it happened?
What is fascinating is that when you get into working with people who have had trauma, which by the way is every one [of us].
It’s not like there are these traumatized people over here and then there is everyone else.
Everybody has trauma.”
Everyone of us has to enter the woods and experience danger.
Kipp continues, “Different things happen to different people.
When you look at people who have post traumatic growth versus post traumatic stress.
The difference is that growth comes when there is secure attachment and emotional resiliency usually beforehand.
After a traumatic experience there is empathy and connection.
So that there is psychological and emotional safety on both sides of an event.
So, what’s really interesting is that it’s not so much what happened to somebody but how resilient were they going into it and how much empathy and connection was there afterwards.”
We have to remember that life will present many traumatic, difficult situations but when we have the perspective that at the end of life here on earth, we will have the comfort and love of our Heavenly Father and the Saviour to heal our wounds.
We came from the love and safety of the pre-existence with loving Heavenly Parents, and we will return to love and safety, empathy and connection as we pass through the veil to worlds to come. All will be made right.
In the meantime, we can experience the Saviour’s love and healing just as he offered to the Nephites, and we too can show love, empathy and connection to support each other until that time that we return to our Heavenly Father.
Why else does the Lord need us to be ministering brothers and sisters? So that we can provide comfort and empathy and connection for those around us, as each one of us go through difficult things.
Elder Uchtdorf shared in his talk “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world … might be saved” (John 3:17).
“Christ came to save us. If we have taken a wrong course, …”
[If we have strayed from the Path]He continues, “A safe return is possible if we will follow God’s plan for our salvation.
“That plan includes divine reconciliation and forgiveness.”
Reconciliation means to make things right.
And remember – Repentance is returning to the mark – to return our gaze, and our direction towards the Saviour and the gospel.
He goes on to say, “We need a strong faith in Christ to be able to repent.”
To trust enough that looking to him again will bring the healing we need.
Elder Uchtdorf explains, “Our faith has to include a “correct idea of [God’s] character, perfections, and attributes” (Lectures on Faith [1985], 38). If we believe that God knows all things, is loving, and is merciful, we will be able to put our trust in Him for our salvation without wavering.”
The final part is forgiveness. We are told over and over that we will be forgiven.
The Lord said, “He that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven” (D&C 1:32; emphasis added). And He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). “Be faithful and diligent … and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love” (D&C 6:20).
And He declared, “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more” (D&C 58:42).
But the question is – can we believe it?
Elder Uchtdorf asks the question “How does extending forgiveness help us to receive God’s forgiveness?”
I think it is important to note, he did not ask “how does extending forgiveness help us to get God’s forgiveness?”
Forgiveness is gift that we are freely given over and over, but do we allow ourselves to be forgiven?
Let’s go back to Little Red Riding Hood one last time. She feels ashamed of what she got herself into, she knows she disobeyed. It is probably harder for her to accept that her parents don’t hate her or judge her bad decisions.
Her parents, on the other hand. are simply relieved that she is okay and find it easy to forgive her mistakes.
That is how our Heavenly Parents respond to us – they are thrilled to have us coming home to them, they can easily forgive our mistakes along the way.
So back to Elder Uchtdorf’s question: “How does extending forgiveness help us to receive God’s forgiveness?” When we extend forgiveness to others, sometimes we say that it is a hard thing to do. I don’t think it is.
If it is our child who has made the mistake, like Little Red Riding Hood, we would forgive right away. I think that is because there is so much love involved.
It is easy to forgive those we love. When we struggle, it is because judgement has gotten in the way of love.
As Mother Theresa has said: “The moment you are loving someone, you are no longer judging them and the moment you are judging someone you are no longer loving them.”
If I struggle to forgive someone then I need to love and see them as God sees them.
When we experience and recognise how easy it is to forgive those whom we love then we can more readily accept that because God loves us so much, more than we can possibly imagine, He readily and consistently forgives us.
It is at that point we can finally receive his forgiveness and accept the gift he is offering us.
He simply wants us to return to him, return our gaze to the Saviour, remember his teaching and example and recognize that all he has done, is doing, and will do to help us return safely to our heavenly home.
It is all about the return. It is the Saviour who will help us to get there.
“Forgiveness prepares us to receive. Forgiveness opens our hearts so we can be filled with God’s love.”
Laura Lane from ‘I Touch the Heavens’