Forgiveness

Make yourself comfortable, this is going to be a long one. I realize that lately I haven't been particularly funny or my usual, cynical self. I've had a lot on my mind. This blog has been better than any therapy session I've ever sat through - so I'm doing a little soul bearing tonight. (All in the name of therapy.)
Tonight I attended a fireside (for all my non-Mormon friends, a fireside is a church meeting held on Sunday nights - usually a motivational speaker-type thing). Bishop Chris Williams spoke about about forgiveness. If you don't know who that is, please click on the link for a summary of his story. He lost two of his children and his wife, who was 6 months pregnant, last February when a drunk driver hit their car.
In February, when the accident occurred, my own 16 year old brother was in a rehab program after he'd been involved in a drunk driving accident. It's probably not appropriate for me to share much of his story here so I won't say more than that. But I couldn't help but see the similarities between the two stories. My brother was the same age as this other drunk driver and in fact, acquaintances with him. It very easily could have been a situation that our family might have been dealing with. (Gratefully, nobody was hurt to that extent in my brother's accident.) But I've spent a lot of time thinking about what that boy's family is going through.
It sounds strange, and maybe backwards, to be thinking of the drunk driver's family more than the actual victim's family. But that's where my mind has been. So tonight, to hear from Bishop Williams, the love that he has for his family, and this teenage boy's family was so moving. The stories that he shared were so personal, I'd feel weird sharing them on a blog. I will say that I have no doubt that he genuinely has forgiven this boy. Half of his family was taken from him less than a year ago at the hand of a recklessly acting teenager and this man feels such love. How can that be? (And here is where the soul-bearing comes in.)
I have made a lot of friends here in the blogging world. I've shared so much of myself, my family and my friends. And for some reason, I tend to feel hesitant to share my beliefs in my Heavenly Father and our Savior. I believe that our Heavenly Father is mindful of our needs. I believe in the power of prayer and in the atonement of Jesus Christ. I believe that Heavenly Father wants to help us and wants us to be happy. Our lives are so full, sometimes with hard things, but so much good is out there too. There is no way for us to steer around life's trials, but the atonement of our Savior provides us a way to heal and to feel love and forgiveness.
So there's a part of me that some of you have never seen and it's scarier for me to share that than all the crazy things my kids do. (What's wrong with that picture?)
Tonight a woman sang a hymn that is very near and dear to me. It is based on the scriptures in John 14:27; 16:33 and Hebrews 4:14-16. I love the words -

Where Can I Turn For Peace?
Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace when other sources cease to make me whole? When with a wounded heart, anger, or malace, I draw myself apart, searching my soul?
Where, when my aching grows, where wehn I languish, where in my need to know, where can I run? Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish? Who, who can understand? He only One.
He answers privately, reaches my reaching. In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend. Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching. Constant He is and kind, Love without end.