Guilt

What needs to happen when we feel the pain of guilt is to quickly fall to our knees and repent. No excuse making, no justifying, no blaming; but just simply repent and seek the sweet release of the pain of guilt and open the door to a clear conscience and the opportunity to change and an opportunity for growth.

If we don’t seek that path then we become what the author of the book White Fragility so beautifully declared. “When we are mired in guilt, we are narcissistic and ineffective; guilt functions as an excuse for inaction.”

Picture that—mired in deep gooey mud and unable to move forward. We are stuck in a selfish predicament. Selfish because we can only think about ourselves and how hard life is at that moment. Of course, as my last post discussed, we could try hard to excuse and justify our behavior and try to place the guilt on other people, but that won’t free us from the muddy pit. We will only sink in deeper.

It is only when we admit our error and seek forgiveness from those we have wronged, especially our Creator, can we release the pain of guilt without being consumed by it, Just accept 100 percent responsibility and be cleansed. 

It really is a simple path that can bring us immediate relief. I know because I have been there. I have felt the excruciating pain of knowing that I am guilty of causing someone else a tremendous amount of pain and making my own life miserable. I was suddenly held accountable for something that I had wanted to believe was due to someone else’s sins. The guilt was truly painful. More than I could bare. But then, I did literally fell to my knees and I felt the immediate relief of being forgiven by my Savior. I felt the guilt melt away and I knew that I was completely loved by Him. I knew that my sins and my mistakes were swallowed up years ago in that Garden, and all I had to do was acknowledge my guilt and embrace that gift and thus be able to forgive myself. 

I say with complete conviction that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real. It is powerful. And because of His gift, I don’t have to live with guilt. I can step out of the deep mud and move forward. I don’t have to be defined by my mistakes but I am given the opportunity to just learn from them.