Remember No More

I've written before about how remembering something is less like opening a computer file and more like recreating a piece of music using similar notes. But each time you retrieve a memory, the memory comes out a little bit different, and, like a game of telephone, the memories we pull out most often become the most distorted. That is why part of the repentance process is to confess our sins, forsake them, and remember them no more: "Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more. By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold, he will confess them and forsake them." (D&C 58:42-43). When we choose to remember our sins, or to remember the sins of those who have wronged us, each time we pull up the memory it becomes a little less true. We may have nursed at a grudge so long that every single aspect of the memory has changed a dozen times. How can they not remember what they did? We may ask. But the truth is our memory has become so warped that they really don't remember, because it didn't happen that way. The same goes for ourselves, when we replay over and over again some mistake we have made in the past, the memory becomes something entirely different. But when we come unto the Lord, He will show us the true memory, He will forgive us, and then He will remember our sin no more, and He will ask us to forsake and remember no more that sin, that we may not get trapped again into a more and more distorted memory. By refusing to remember our sin, we keep the memory true, and the truth will set us free.