Repentance

     Some time ago, I remember buying a little bit of furniture for a new flat I was moving into, and a friend gave us a sofa as a gift because she knew we didn't have enough furniture.  Upon delivering all the furniture we ran into an interesting situation w here everything went in except the sofa.  The problem being that the front door was unusually narrow.  The other problem was that the flat was not on the ground floor, it was 1 floor up.  After a few awkward situations with storing it, a few weeks later we finally organized for a friend to come with a ladder.  He pushed the couch up the ladder with his head (no small feat) and we stood at the top and pulled it in through the window.

     Then, a few weeks later, there were university students we knew fairly well that offered us another couch.  We foolishly accepted, forgetting all the problems we had the last time we tried to get a couch into our flat.  But notwithstanding this we took a look at it and it was quite a bit smaller than the last couch and we assumed it would fit this time.  But after dragging it about a mile and a half over to our flat and trying about 20 times to fit it through the doorway, it felt a lot like fitting a square peg into a circular hole.  We sat for a few minutes out on the sidewalk with the couch in silence.  Then I slowly sat down on the couch and placed my back carefully against one armrest and my feet on the other laying down.  Then I kicked as hard as I could and snapped the arm right off.  After that the couch fit right through the doorway and we later had to fix the couch ourselves.  

     All this drama of getting these 2 couches into our flat makes me think sometimes.  I ponder somewhat regularly on repentance.  To repent to me means to change in a way that puts my will more in line with God's will.  Repentance is more than saying sorry, it is showing that you are sorry, by doing all you can to not be a repeat offender any longer! I am far from perfect, but I try my best to repent when I do fall short of what God asks me to do.  Often I make a resolution, never again will I do that again!  NEVER AGAIN will I accept a couch as a gift!  Only to realize in the moment just a small while later that I am making the same mistakes that I thought I had left in the dust.  Often they are even things that I had thought I overcome, only to see myself doing the same thing.
    When these things happen I find it is important to not get discouraged.  I was very frustrated when the second couch didn't fit through the doorway.  I started to have flashbacks and fears emerge from the memory of the first couch.  Just know when faced in these situations, that this happens to everyone.  Everyone at some point doesn't quite measure up, and they do it more than once.  They commit to being better and they do not reach that commitment.  The key is to not give up or allow discouragement to slow your progress.  God does not demand instant perfection, but rather he pleads for constant progression.  As you repent regularly you will come to see that it is always worth it.
     Remember also, how much easier prevention is than repentance.  Don't be the person who says they will sin now and repent later.  The Book of Mormon teaches that "this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God".   No matter how good it sounds at first, sin always results in a decrease in happiness for someone. It would have been so much easier to just not accept the second couch, rather than have to break it and then do all I can to fix it.