Summary: <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Receiving A Restitution Letter<br> I received a restitution letter from my ex-husband in the mail last week. I’ve been pondering and thinking about this. In the meantime, my church had their semi-annual conference. I was praying to know God’s will for me and to hear his voice and to know how I should talk about this.<br> In conference, they talked about a drunk driver who had killed a wife and a husband. In that story of forgiveness, they were at the courthouse and saw the mother and father of the drunk driver and they all broke down in tears and gave each other hugs. It was a beautiful moment of forgiveness.<br> That is a beautiful story, and I really loved that story. Also, that doesn’t happen very often in this situation because the offense is not very clear to people. It’s clear to us. It’s clear to me. I’m sure it’s clear to you, but, to our in-laws, it’s not very clear. They can’t see the abuse for what it is, and they can’t see the infidelity for what it is. It’s not very clear to clergy. It’s not clear to therapists.<br> What Does It Mean To Forgive? What Does It Mean To Make Restitution?<br> The idea of forgiveness is difficult in a situation of abuse because the offense cannot be agreed upon much of the time. The person is denying it or acting like it’s our fault. That story would be very different if the parents of the drunk driver claimed that, “No, your son and your daughter, the ones that were killed, they were drunk. It’s their fault that now our son is in jail. It’s their fault that our son was drinking. It’s their fault that this accident happened.” That would be a very difficult situation.<br> I’m not saying that forgiveness is not also the answer for that situation, but that drunk driver was held accountable by the law. He was held accountable by his own parents and by society. That’s not happening with abusers and porn users. They’re not being held accountable.<br> We, as women, our job, I feel like, is to muster the strength from God to hold them accountable in the way that we can. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so I study sometimes from the Bible and sometimes from the Book of Mormon.<br> Forgiveness Can Exist With Boundaries - People Who Will Not Make True Restitution Are Not Safe<br> In the Book of Mormon, there is an ancient prophet named is Nephi. He and his family build a boat. They come from Jerusalem to the American continent around 600 B.C. Nephi has two brothers, Laman and Lemuel, who I would call addicts and abusers. They frequently abuse Nephi. They tie him up, they scream and yell at him. They beat him.<br> They are frequently called to repentance, and they frequently "repent." They say, “Okay, we’ve changed. We’re sorry, we’ll do the right thing,” and then they don’t. They never really change. Nephi forgives them over and over and over and over. If we stopped here, we might think, “Okay, this is what God wants us to do. He wants us to be like this strong prophet and forgive over and over and over.”<br> Yet, once they make it here to the Americas, as Nephi’s praying about it, he gets the clear answer that he needs to get away from them. He gathers up his family and he actually separates from Laman and Lemuel. That’s when the two groups form, the Nephites and the Lamanites.<br> The Nephites are people of God who obey the commandments and Lamanites are not. Lamanites are angry, they’re always wanting to fight. After this separation,
