What to Remember - What to Forget

Elder Gerrit W. Gong's talk Always Remember Him speaks of remembering and forgetting. He said that remembering and forgetting are an important part of our eternal journey. As we gain experience here on earth, there are some things that we should always remember and bear in mind, but there are also things we would do well to forget.

We should try to remember God's commandments and promises and anything else from which we could learn, including most experiences, positive or negative. But the things we should forget are almost all linked closely to the negative experiences we should remember to learn from.

When someone sins against us, the Lord counsels us to forgive them, and the Lord, being our perfect example with forgiveness as with everything else, has said "He who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more." Thus, we should probably follow His example by forgetting at least part of the memory of other's sins against us.

However, completely forgetting that the event ever took place would be unwise. If we literally did that, people would be able to take advantage of us over and over again, and some people would. Naturally, we need to remember that that person did that thing, so we can be careful not to give them the opportunity to do it again. We should remember at least that the event took place.

Also, as with any other experience, positive or negative, there are many spiritual lessons we could learn from the experience of being sinned against. For example, we could gain some perspective of the level of Christ's capacity to forgive those who have sinned against Him. We could learn practical tips of what to watch out for in the future. We can learn from other's bad example what we should do in such situations instead. We should not forget any experience until we have learned all we can from it, and there is always more to learn, so we probably should not put the experience itself out of our mind, unless it is spiritually or emotionally harmful to us.

We should, however, drive out of our mind any thoughts, including memories, that cause us spiritual or emotional harm. We will be blessed as we strive to forget the pain that others have caused us and the negative feelings we have felt toward them. Jesus was a champion of doing this. Even as the Roman soldiers were literally torturing Him to death, He ignored the pain they were causing Him and put any and all negative thoughts out of His mind, and instead felt compassion and concern for the people who were literally killing Him. I'm not sure we can do that. I'm not sure if God even expects us to try to be that forgiving. But I'm sure that it would be strongly cleansing for our souls if we could let go of pain and hurt feelings that quickly and that completely. While we should remember to gain wisdom of our experiences, we should try to let go of the pain.

It is often difficult to forget the negative feelings we have felt, and even in the worst of experiences, there are some parts that would be beneficial to remember. Knowing what to remember and what to forget is about as difficult as remembering the things we should remember and forgetting the things we should forget. But holding on to wisdom and letting go of pain can be greatly beneficial to us. If nothing else, doing so will help us gain and retain wisdom and will help us not to continue experiencing our pain. It will help us to forgive others, which can be cleansing for our souls, and it can help us to avoid such situations in the future, which will help prevent future pain. Many blessings can be gained from remembering and forgetting the right parts of our negative experiences, which is good news. Those blessings may even be worth going through the effort of earning them.