I noticed something interesting today as I was reading in the Book of Mormon. One of the writers, a prophet named Alma, was telling his son the experiences surrounding his conversion. Alma had been a rebel, consciously trying to tear down God's church in his day. However, after a miraculous visitation from an angel, Alma describes himself as being "racked with eternal torment...with all my sins." He goes on to say that "the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror." Sounds pretty intense.
Interestingly, if you skip down a few verses, Alma then says, "methought I saw...God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels...yea, and my soul did long to be there." That is a dramatic change in just eight verses: from inexpressible horror to longing. When I noticed this, I stopped and asked myself what happened in those eight verses that could do that, that could cause that significant of a change.
I noticed three things.
First, Alma called out to Christ. He says that he remembered his father teaching him about a savior that would provide relief from sin; perhaps in desperation as much as budding faith, Alma cried "O Jesus...have mercy on me." I can think of less extreme times in my life than Alma's where my first choice for relief from pain or guilt wasn't turning to Christ. Significantly, I've never been able to find more then just distraction by doing so. Sometimes I can distract myself for a long time, but ultimately when something is wrong, I've only been able to set it right by going to Him.
Second and third, Alma found mercy and forgiveness. These are similar but I think there is a difference in this story. If you look at Alma's history, he really had been trying to destroy the church of God - probably not the best way to get someone's good side. Despite this, after a comparatively small but still sincere effort, God showed Alma mercy. This reminds me a little of the parable in the New Testament where Christ teaches about a man that owed his master 10,000 talents (a form of ancient currency). Despite the massiveness of the debt, when the man asked for time to repay, the master forgave the entire debt forthwith. Am I that ready to extend mercy so quickly? Something to consider.
Third, forgiveness. The mercy that God showed to Alma came in the form of forgiveness of his sins and removal of guilt. In his own words, he said "I could remember my pains no more." Guilt to me is the worst feeling in the world, and after the things Alma had done, I'm certain he was being absolutely smothered by it. Yet again, that guilt was removed and replaced with "joy as exceeding as was my pain!"
After experiencing that, I can see why he longed to be standing in Heavenly Father's presence.
Last thought: I think this can be a model for how to handle sin or even just guilt. Where do you turn to? If Heavenly Father was so quick to respond to Alma, with all of his sins and history, and give mercy and relief, why not for you and me?
I hope you don't feel that I'm oversimplifying things here because I realize that life can be complicated. But even with those complications, I believe there is something to learn here about how to handle sin and guilt and the willingness of Heavenly Father to extend mercy and forgiveness regardless of our past.
