When does repentance take over the sting of justice

[OhWELLthen]

I have been struggling with past sin of my own choosing for many years.   I recently got involved in church and accepted Jesus in my life as my savior.   The sins of my past still sting.  I still feel so much sorrow for what I haphazardly threw away and do not possess anymore.   I still struggle with knowing i compromised my body as a temple and i can never undo that.    I have been repenting for years trying to learn and develop past it.    I want so desperately to feel like a new creation,  but unfortunately i cannot undo the past.  I am not a Mormon.    I have a very vague and elementary  concept about Mormonism really.  I recently started looking into it on a whim driven by the deep desire i have to continue drawing myself closer and closer to the Lord, and a very dear friend who is of the Mormon practice started sharing some of the theology and practices of Mormonism with me.  I envy him.  I envy the choice he was given to hear and know the truth before he came of age to so willingly throw away his virtue.  I envy people who did not know that seeking the lord was the only way to feel the deep spiritual voids that i stupidly thought i could fill with cheap and imidiate attention from people and society.  I have so many regrets and so many envies of so many of you who had the support to know that God had a greater answer and a greater purpose than sin.   I had to go through 35 years of blind searching for Him.   Searching for me within Him.   And it left me a shell of a human ravaged by sin and error.   What is worse is that i have moved on to a life of obedience and fullness only to have the occasional reminder that i had to become something unworthy to receive Him into my heart.  I was unworthy.  And i have to face that unworthy creature any time i have an intimate relationship with my testimony as i know that my past will always be a tool of the enemy to destroy my future.  What answers can i find Within this community about the duality of justice and forgiveness of sin?  When is my repentance sufficient justice?  When is my deficiencies in chastity ever going to be ok?   When can i ever look to my future of virtue and say my past sin does not affect you?   

[NeuroTypical]

Consider for a moment, the notion that "X will happen", and then you'll feel all better.  Perhaps X is "apply the atonement and repent".  Perhaps X is "Keep the commandments and live life as a good person".  Perhaps X is "make amends and gain forgiveness".  And then it's finally ok.

I would like to suggest a different X.  My X is "I'll live my life as best I can to be a good disciple, husband, father.  Then I'll die and face my final righteous judge.  Then, should I be so fortunate as to be ale to enter the presence of my Savior and Father in Heaven, then my mortal burdens shall finally be lifted."

Yeah, I suffer from my past too.  They tell me that repentance from something horrible can be like going through the grieving process.  Do you know the stages of grief?  Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, sad acceptance?  Where are you on the scale?

They also tell me that the more we research the brain, the more we understand about grief.  They tell me grief isn't a process that you eventually complete.  It is something that stays with you for the rest of your life, but it eventually takes it's proper place among the rest of your life, and is bearable.  Ask any mother who has lost a child - even if it was 50 years ago - they will tell you about grief.

So, you ask good questions:

- When is repentance sufficient justice?  That doesn't make sense.  Repentance is for you.  Forgiveness/justice is for the folks harmed by your actions.  They must find their own path through forgiveness and the desire for justice.  You must forgive yourself.  None of this means you'll stop having regrets.

- When in your future can you say your past sin no longer affects someone else?  Again, that's on them, not you.  It depends on the person.  Maybe they need to go through their own grieving process.  When will it no longer affect you?  See above.  My last bunch of traumatically scarring sin* was somewhere in the early '90's.  I still tear up today thinking about it.  But it doesn't hold me down.  I get to use it for things like this, where hopefully it might help someone walk their own path.  

God bless, and you'll find your path.

 

 

 

* Keep in mind, I'm not perfect, and still sin.  I'm just talking about the stuff I don't seem to be able to come to peace with as I live life.

[zil]

Welcome, @OhWELLthen!  Reading your post, I was reminded of a talk titled "Value beyond Measure", that I recommend you read.  Here's a quote:

Quote

Let me point out the need to differentiate between two critical words: worth and worthiness. They are not the same. Spiritual worth means to value ourselves the way Heavenly Father values us, not as the world values us. Our worth was determined before we ever came to this earth. “God’s love is infinite and it will endure forever.”³

On the other hand, worthiness is achieved through obedience. If we sin, we are less worthy, but we are never worth less! We continue to repent and strive to be like Jesus with our worth intact. As President Brigham Young taught: “The least, the most inferior spirit now upon the earth … is worth worlds.”⁴ No matter what, we always have worth in the eyes of our Heavenly Father.

No matter what you've done - you are worth worlds.  Perhaps ponder that when you're struggling.

[OhWELLthen]

Yes!  I am coming to the point in understanding what true repentance is.  It is a long process of coming to terms with what you did and what you compromised and truly understanding the weight of those things. Then learning new ways of living and being. I am at sad acceptance.   And yes, posting this and letting it all out helped me come to the realization that i most fear the vulnerability that comes from intimacy, bc that will shed light on those parts of my existence.   Then i will cause that person grief and pain .    I can forgive myself eventually and i know that i am still of value.   But the compromised choices will eventually cause me great loss as it already has, by caring about someone who couldn’t accept it.    Maybe that is what i struggle to sadly accept.  It will not always be overlooked by others as a past experience but a defining quality.  And that is of  their free will, something that is perfect.  I don’t think i am so much scarred anymore about what happened.  I went through a traumatizing break up years and years after i became a mother,  a wife, a Christian.   I had not gone through my repentance process completely and so i just let the past lie in the past and never told it.     But when i got into a transparent relationship with someone,  all came spewing forth and staring me in my face.  And that in itself was the first time i lost someone over deeds I couldn’t undo.   And so naturally now i fear this to repeat itself when and if i ever try to have another marriage.   I feel like I’m going into it with a handicap.  But you are right,  its only a handicap if the other person chooses to see it that way.    Thank you so much.  

[Latter-Day Marriage]

There are a number of steps in the repentance process, and missing some of them will work against your getting to that point of feeling reborn.

The first two steps are to recognize you have sinned, and to feel the appropriate level of regret over it.  It sounds like you have done that.

The next step is to make a full confession of your wrongdoing to God, and also to anybody you have harmed by your sin and ask their forgiveness.  Have you gone to God in prayer and confessed your sin to him and asked for his forgiveness?  If not please do so, and keep doing so until you receive it.  Yes, he already knows what you did, but you need sot do this for yourself.  If at some point in the future you meet somebody and the two of you want to get married, you need to confess what you did to them and ask their forgiveness.  Yes, that is scary, but the flip side of repentance is forgiveness.  We beloved that we are obligated to forgive others, and somebody who won't forgive is guilty of a greater sin than what they are being asked forgiveness for.  If somebody would rather leave you than forgive you, then not marrying them is probably a good thing.

You also need to stop doing the sin, and also make restitution for it.  When you steal something, you have to give it back to repent.  Some things can't be undone like that, but you can make up for it in other ways like helping other people not make the same mistake for example.

Lastly you need to commit yourself to never doing it again.

There is a bigger picture here too.  Repentance is one step of our journey back to God.  The first step is to have faith in Christ, faith that he can save you from your sins.  Then comes repentance.  After that comes baptism by those with authority from God to do so.  That will wash the stain of your sins away, then comes receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost.   When the Holy Ghost comes to you, that is when you are reborn spiritually and walk in a newness of life.

We believe that the authority from God to baptize rests with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and in no other church.  I would encourage you to meet with our missionaries and investigate the possibility of becoming a baptized member of the Church.  I have no doubt if you do so you will find the peace you are looking for.