A Change of Being

My new favorite book is Chronicles of Everfall: Shadow of the Conqueror by Shad M. Brooks. The main and nearly titular character of this book is Daylen Namaran, better known as Dayless the Conqueror, whose tyrannical, bloody rule of the Dawn Empire made him the most infamous man in the world. He was overthrown and thought killed, but he survived in hiding and plotted his revenge, but given enough time to reflect on his life, he realized what terrible things he had done, and he came to feel great remorse. In time, he decided to turn his life around. He adopted a new identity, and went about doing good, hoping to permanently make his new identity his true identity.

Over the course of the book, Daylen explores how he is and is not a very different person than he had been, and the scriptures explore this idea as well. When Saul converted to Christianity, he took on a new name, and he wasn't the only one. Through repentance and conversion, we all become different, better people over time. Of course, the past can still haunt us. We still need to make amends to the extent that we can. But when we truly repent, it's almost as though we completely change identities. Tad. R. Callister spoke of this transformation in his General Conference talk on The Atonement of Jesus Christ:

When we repent, we are “born of God.” We become, as the scriptures say, “new creatures” in Christ. With perfect honesty we can now say, “I am not the man or woman who committed those past sins. I am a new and transformed being.”

Now, this doesn't completely let us off the hook. We still have to try to undo what we've done and/or make up for it, but the idea that we can effectively become different people  is both intriguing and appealing to me. Normally, when I think of the transforming and cleansing power of  The Atonement of Jesus Christ, I think of those powers as being completely separate. We are cleansed from our sins, but retain our identity, and we are transformed from mortal beings to immortal beings. I hadn't considered the possibility that these two powers could work together to turn us into new, sinless, eternal beings, but now that's something I greatly look forward to. My sins are nowhere near as great as those of Dayless the Conqueror, but I too wouldn't mind a chance to reinvent myself and become a new person, without the burdens of the poor choices I've made, and I can. Through repentance, we can all become "new and transformed beings." We just need to repent thoroughly enough and change drastically enough that we can properly be considered new people.