It may not have been the worst thing I ever did, but I regretted it the longest.<\/p>\n
I was one of those kids who felt picked on in school (boo hoo hoo). Nerdy, teacher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pet, clumsy at sports, I certainly provided no shortage of targets for the slings and arrows of outrageous juveniles. But at least there was always Peggy Prouty* who was overweight and even lower on the playground pecking order.<\/p>\n
Most of my recesses were spent reading in a garden near the school office windows. Peggy hid there, too. We never spoke, never acknowledged each other\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pariah existence.<\/p>\n
One day the queen bees swarmed through. They started in on me first. Then they spotted Peggy, and the chanting began. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Piggy Prouty! Piggy, piggy, piggy Prouty!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She kept reading, pretending to take no notice of the she-devils dancing three feet away.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe it then \u00e2\u20ac\u201c still can hardly believe it now \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but I heard my own voice rise with theirs: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Piggy Prouty! Piggy, piggy, piggy Prouty!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
For 35 years, those ten seconds haunted me. If I could have undone any event in my life, it would have been that one. <\/p>\n
Being the good little Mormon girl with regular classes on repentance, I did what I could to erase the thing. I recognized I had done wrong; I certainly felt remorse; I did not repeat that sin or anything quite like it; I couldn’t ask for Peggy’s forgiveness after we had moved to another state, so I prayed for God’s forgiveness. But I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel better about it, and the memory came back to trouble me, over and over again.<\/p>\n
We most often discuss the Atonement in connection with repentance, in terms of justice and mercy: We sin; we repent; Christ in his mercy pays the price of our sin; justice is appeased. Justice is something to be feared, to escape through appealing to Christ. But so what if God extended mercy to me for what I had done? Peggy had been hurt, and my being forgiven didn’t bring justice to her; my forgiveness seemed only to add insult to her injury.<\/p>\n
But that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the full story, I eventually learned. Christ \u00e2\u20ac\u0153comprehended all things\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (D&C 88:6), he knows the pain that comes to his people in mortality: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153he will take upon him their infirmities … according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Alma 7:12); and his Atonement covers not only our sins: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but also our griefs and sorrows: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Isaiah 53:4-5).<\/p>\n
Justice not only holds us accountable for our wrongs, it safeguards the blessings that would come to us but for the wrongs of which we are innocent. In the words of Elder Richard G. Scott at October conference, 2006, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Redeemer can settle your individual account with justice … Through the Atonement you can live in a world where justice assures that you will retain what you earn by obedience.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how this can be \u00e2\u20ac\u201c how Peggy Prouty can become what she would have been had not childhood bullying changed her in the way I know from experience it did change her; I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how Christ will heal the life of a person spent in a barely functioning body, or with a crippled mind. I only know that somehow the Atonement will someday make whole the grief of a childless woman, and the father robbed of the opportunity to raise his children because of his ex-wife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s choices, and the innocent victims of wars and drunk drivers and playground bullies and poverty and malnutrition and natural disasters and violent criminals and drownings and fire and loneliness and unfulfilled dreams and talents with no chance for development. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how; I only trust it will be.<\/p>\n
*Peggy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name has been disguised to respect her privacy. If by some miracle you are reading this, Peggy, I do remember your real name. I am so sorry for what I did. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It may not have been the worst thing I ever did, but I regretted it the longest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}