My Post-Camp Shower

This afternoon, I came back from Scout Camp. Scout Camp is an adventure, five to seven days long, in which one usually gets sweaty, dirty, and generally filthy. Naturally, the first thing I did when I got home, after setting down all my camping gear, was going into the bathroom to take a shower. The shower itself didn't last long, especially compared to the length of my camping trip, but that brief shower washed a whole week worth of dirtiness off of me and left me feeling fresh and clean.

As I sat, clean, at this computer, I thought "If one quick shower can wash away over 100 hours of dirtiness, imagine how much sin a few minutes of sincere repentance can wash away." I was reminded of a quote Elder Holland gave to a group of BYU students in his May 18, 1980 devotional, For Times of Trouble:

You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. That’s another satanic suckerpunch—that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, “I’ll change”—and mean it.

This is one of those quotes that I remember hearing and liking, but couldn't confirm its authenticity until now. It's an encouraging message - one that we all need to hear from time to time, but it's not complete. Only looking at the passage above, one could get the impression that repentance is something one could do quickly at the last minute and expect to be forgiven of all the bad things they've ever done. Though repentance is faster than you might think, it may also be harder. Elder Holland continues:

Of course there will be problems to work out and restitutions to make. You may well spend—indeed you had better spend—the rest of your life proving your repentance by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as for Alma and the sons of Mosiah.

I just spent a whole week getting dirty, and it only took me a few minutes to get clean again, but if I go outside again, work up a sweat, and get myself all dusty and filthy again, that shower I've taken won't have meant much. Similarly, repentance doesn't take an eternity, but proving the sincerity of one's repentance does. Yes, we can repent quickly if we really mean it, but if we go back to our old ways immediately after "repenting," then that repentance won't have had a real, lasting effect on our souls. Repentance can be instantaneous, but it has to be sincere.

I'm grateful I went to Scout Camp. It was a fun experience and I also think that I learned and grew while I was up there. Yes, I got dirty, and there were times when it was unpleasant, but that's exactly like life. In our lives, all of us will face challenges and learn from them, and all of us will get dirty and sweaty along the way. Thankfully, we can bathe as often as we want to, both literally and metaphorically, so we can have those growing experiences and still keep ourselves clean.