Repentance and forgiveness in Family life. (Chapter 20)

What happens when something is said or done to you that is very hurtful? What is it that you do personally? Why is it that heavenly father gave us the commandment to forgive all men and why must we do it 70X7 times that is only 490 can you imagine going through an entire life and only forgiving others 490 times and that was it, that was your limit. Thank goodness that is not the case. Personally I don't know if I could make it through a full week let a lone an entire life time! The book Successful marriages and families had a great chapter on this where they talked about how there are things that happen in a family daily that need to be forgiven or repented of. We all make minor mistakes but we also make major mistakes. If we as a family build up resentment by holding grudges about the little things that happen everyday then when something big happens that wedge can easily crack the relationships that we hold with other people. There are scientific reasons to forgive as well. This is what the book says about repentance and forgiveness being important and why we must use it in our family life. "Interpersonal repentance and forgiveness have obvious benefits in repairing or mediating damaged family relationships (Enright & Fitz­ gibbons, 2000). In addition, individuals and families who are able to forgive important transgressions are likely to have better emotional and physical health (Battle & Miller, 2005), and positive emotions improve health in a variety of ways" I think that is interesting that those who forgive are given the blessing of better emotional and physical health. It becomes a blessing to always try to forgive and repent of the things that we know we should be better about. Repentance and forgiveness works for you individually as a person as well, don't always beat yourself up about things that you should or want to be better at, that is something that I have had a struggle with in my new marriage to remember that we are both learning how to be married and even though my husband is a pretty close to perfect guy and is awesome he can irritate me like nobodies business, the thing is he knows me so well he knows where to push all the buttons, so learning to forgive him for those minor things make it so much easier to not be upset about other things like a miscommunication, or something I'm hinting at that he doesn't catch on to. The same goes for me I have to remind myself that I am not a perfect person and I cannot be the perfect little Betty Crocker Wife, it simply is not possible. However, because of the atonement of Jesus Christ I am able to forgive myself for my short comings and move forward into being a better person being the person that I want to become. Another Challenge for you guys, take a week and look around you at all the things that your family does that annoy you, then take a second and replace that with one thing that you are grateful for about them. It will help you to see them as God sees them, then after that take the time to ask forgiveness for being annoyed and repent. Just try it, it might work!