Alma 13: 27

And now, my brethren, There is so much love here that I need to gain in order to read this will all of the honest intensity with which it was written. How would I say it now? “I wish from a not quite completely superficial place in my heart, with some anxiety, but not usually enough to provoke me to action, that you would live out someone else’s words and throw your sins behind you through the power of Christ, and receive His salvation today: feel His love today, and be able to respect yourself—your new self, cleansed from iniquity and restored to purity.”

I wish from the inmost part of my heart, What methods do I have for letting things seep deep into my soul? Enos (Enos 1: 3) talked about being out hunting when things sank into his soul: there seems to be a kind of passive seepage that occurs with time and meditative actions. In that case, I should try to make more of my actions meditative. If Enos could have the truths of the Gospel sink deep into his soul while he was hunting, then I should be able to let these truths sink deep into my soul while vacuuming, while riding the bus, while studying, even while working. And there have been times when that has happened: how I wish that all of the time that I spend on all of these tasks could be, like my adversities, turned to my gain!

yea, with great anxiety even unto pain, Not that I want to feel pain, but I want to reach out to others with a compassion that allows me to share their pain. And there is a certain pain that comes with looking back on your life and considering those sinful actions as part of who you are and part of what you have done. The Lord allows us to jettison most of those unsightly memories and be made clean.

I wonder whether there is a kind of distributive property of suffering. The law of the fast (abstaining from food for 24 hrs, giving a donation greater or equal to the amount that you would have spent on that day’s food) can be understood in one way to be those who have sufficient means taking on some of the suffering of those who don’t. It’s as if we are trying to dilute the suffering and each take on our own shoulders our share rather than to shun suffering and leave it in concentrated pockets to weigh down (and sink) a small group of people.

that ye would hearken unto my words, I suppose that this step comes down to having words, or saying words, that are worth hearkening to. That disqualifies sarcastic, complaining or especially cynical words. These should be words of encouragement, words that will help people change. Some of the words that have helped me have been statements of patterns that I didn’t see. My Love talks about unrecognized sins as blind spots: weaknesses that we didn’t know we had. Sometimes those have been pointed out to me in a way that has helped me change. What is the proper way to do this, though? I think that in order to be most effective, love should permeate the comment, not just surround it. The comments are best if the Lord has already indicated them to you, and your friend is then confirming only what you already know, but hopefully adding strength to your determination to change. There is quiet stagnation in not being willing to make a comment for fear of hurting someone. Instead, we need to have a trusting relationship as the basis (you trust that even if you mis-speak and it hurts the recipient, that they will forgive you and try to learn from your comments. I believe that there are words of encouragement and words that will help people to repent that are not biting. And so I need to talk about these principles to those who may listen. I need to desire that change for them, not so that I will not be tempted to judge, but so that they can have problems resolved and find the sweet fruit of forgiveness realized in their lives.

and cast off your sins, Cast off: such strong connotation: I’m thinking of throwing things (or people in the case of Jonah) overboard, or into the garbage, or (in the allegory of the olive trees) into the fire. Lehi, a man who crossed many waters, appropriately uses the analogy of standing up after being covered with sand on the beach (2 Ne. 1: 23), but at the same time, recognizes the extreme debilitating weight of these sins before they are cast off. He encourages us to shake off our spiritual sleepiness, grogginess, and sometimes devout laziness, and let Christ-born freedom from sins grant us wings (2 Ne. 4: 25, Mal. 4: 2, John 8: 32).

and not procrastinate the day of your repentance; • • •