Learning Life's Lessons and Letting Go

I’ve been feeling very weighed down by something in my past. For weeks, and I guess in all honesty months, I’ve been allowing this thing to hang over me and make me feel guilty, and awkward, and all around bad about myself.

I’ve been studying and pondering the Atonement in my life. Do I fully understand and utilize this precious and wonderful gift? My thoughts would then make me ask, if I do understand this, why am I still allowing various things to control me? Am I not in charge of myself, my thoughts, actions, and attitudes? Am I not, with the help of the Savior and His Atonement, able to overcome any sin I’ve committed and any pain for any reason that I feel?  The answer I’ve found and feel and KNOW is a resounding YES!

With all of this in mind there was one piece of my life that I felt no closure for and that fact alone has been looming over me. I had a thought in the shower (because let’s face it, 95% of life’s solutions are thought of in the shower) that if only I could write a letter to the people this situation involved, perhaps I could just let it go once and for all.

So this morning as I drove to work I dictated the letters that will never be sent. I said EVERYTHING I’ve wanted to say for so long, all the things that have bothered me, caused me anxiety, the things I regret and apologize for. And then mentally I sent that letter and I imagined the recipients receiving this letter and the conversation that it would initiate (it’s a good thing I have an active imagination). I imagined getting together for dinner with this group and rekindling what we once had. And in the course of this “conversation” I realized that as much as I loved things the way they were I can’t go back, I don’t want to go back. I’m not the person that I was during that time period. The things that separated me from this group, those things being my beliefs, standards, and goals, have only become more important in my life and have separated me even further.

It was in this moment that I felt all of my worries dissipate. No longer am I concerned about things as they were. I’m focused on things as they are now and as they will be! I was able to release these feelings of trouble into oblivion and at this moment I feel peace and joy! I feel the power of the Atonement in my life and now, more than ever before, understand that Christ’s promise to heal us from ANYTHING is just that, a promise! Because of the Atonement we can turn to Him and as the scriptures say, cast our burdens upon the Lord. He suffered for us. He knows what we’re dealing with. He’s waiting with outstretched arms to comfort us. It is up to us to turn to Him and accept and internalize the power of His infinite Atonement and to use that to become who He would have us be! Of this I have no doubt!