When hearing the word repentance what are some of the first words that come to mind?  One can think, hope, love, care, and clean.  Pain, sadness, and sorrow also come to mind.  Repentance is something beautiful, but to get there one must go through sorrow.  It is possible to get to that beauty though and feel that hope, but we must go through the hard times first.

    

I love the story of Alma the Younger.  He was an unkind and faithless person, but through repentance he became one of the greatest prophets in the Book of Mormon.  Of his experience he says, “And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!”  The pain was transformed to great joy.  Pain can only become joy if we repent and do so with our hearts. 

Repentance is how we become more like God.  We are putting the natural man off and taking steps to become more like Him.  He knows that it isn’t always easy for us, so we are given the gift of repentance to continually better ourselves and become more like Him.  We must use the gift and use it as He instructs us. 

Claudio D. Zivic wrote about the importance of godly sorrow, as part of the repentance process, in October 2007 conference, “There is only one way to rid ourselves of this suffering.  It is by means of sincere repentance.  I learned that if I could present myself unto the Lord a broken heart and a contrite spirit, feeling godly sorrow for my sins, humbling myself, being repentant of my faults, He, through his miraculous atoning sacrifice, could erase those sins and remember them no more.  If we don’t experience the godly sorrow that results from our sins or unrighteous actions, it will be impossible for us to remain on the way of outstanding people” (After All We Can Do).