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Reproach and Revilings of Men

by Autumn Dickson

There are many things to fear in this world. Our own prophecies of the state of the world before the Second Coming are not for the faint of heart. Jacob knew this, and he chose to teach his people that they were of the house of Israel and would not be forsaken by the Lord. Those who trust in the Lord feel reason to rejoice. Jacob was pleading with them to trust their God so that they could feel this.

There is one very specific fear that Jacob addressed to his people, namely the fear of being hated by others, the fear of being reviled by them.

2 Nephi 8:7 Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart I have written my law, fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.

Jacob was quoting Isaiah, and surely Isaiah wrote these words for our day. We believe in a fair amount of doctrine that is revolting to others. Hopefully we hold to these doctrines with courage as well as kindness; after all, Isaiah was speaking to those who “know righteousness” and part of being righteous is recognizing the divinity in everyone around us. Hopefully we are met with the same respect, but this is not always the case. It is highly likely that we will come across someone hostile to our beliefs, no matter how much kindness we throw their way.

However, this verse hit different this week. I believe it hit me differently this week because I realized how deeply and personally Jacob must have felt this. Jacob, as much as anyone, knew what it was like to be reviled by someone for your beliefs. Did the import of this verse hit him as he read it to his people who had been driven away from family who wanted to hurt them? Did he exchange a knowing look with Nephi as he taught this? Did he think of all those times the good people in his family were reviled by their own brothers?

Jacob and Nephi never reconciled with their brothers in this life. They died estranged from them.

How long did it take these brothers to heal from those familial rifts? We see all the best of Jacob and Nephi in The Book of Mormon, but I’m pretty convinced they had some trauma to work through. I have personally seen estrangement in my own extended family, and it’s ugly. I can only imagine how much uglier it gets when that estrangement is a result of one side trying to kill the other. Today, I want to talk about reviling on a traumatic level – on the level experienced by Nephi and Jacob. And even though I will be talking about reviling in a manner that is extreme, abusive, and traumatic, there are principles here that are applicable to everyone, no matter what level of reviling you have experienced.

Naturally achieving the peace of the gospel

I am a huge believer in the sentiment that we do not have to force our feelings in the gospel. When we are met with reviling and resentment, we don’t have to be afraid. But we also don’t have to fake our bravery or peace. We don’t have to try to force ourselves to forgive and feel okay when we find ourselves in broken relationships that refuse to heal on one end. We believe in forgiving, but trying to force forgiveness is counterproductive.

So if we shouldn’t try to force faith and forgiveness, how do we naturally reach those feelings? How do we get to the point where the faith and forgiveness pours out of us rather than us trying desperately to dam up the hurt and be polite anyway? How do we get to the point where we look at our enemies and find that we can’t help but love them anyway? I’m not talking about being polite and taking the high road and patting yourself on the back for being righteous and loving. I’m talking about truly loving those who revile us, where we want to defend them and miss them and we anxiously await the time that we can welcome them back?

Since we’re talking about reviling on a traumatic and abusive level, I want to make sure we understand that there are times in this life where boundaries need to be set and kept for a lifetime. Nephi and Jacob were commanded to flee and make those boundaries. However, we can arrive at a feeling of love for those who have hurt us even if we can’t ever trust them in our mortal lives again. Love does not mean enabling, but finding love within ourselves is important if we want to feel peace. I have also found that when we fill ourselves with real love, the fear of being reviled simultaneously dissipates.

The trauma reaction scale

I’m reiterating this because I think it’s important: When Christ asks us to forgive someone who has reviled us, He is not asking us to try and beat our hurt into submission. He is not asking us to allow someone to hurt us over and over. He is not asking us to “take the high road” and scorn others for being the “unloving ones.” When Christ asks us to forgive those that revile us, He is asking us to free ourselves.

It is critical to understand that this is a process. 

It will take time to achieve this true forgiveness, and in my personal opinion, it will take plenty of anger and reasoning and pleading and wading and trying to heal before we make it there.

I want to talk a bit about trauma because trauma can be a natural result of being reviled severely by others. I know that not every experience we have with being reviled will be traumatic, but you can scale the principles I’m hoping to teach. I am not an expert on trauma, but I do love learning about it. Understanding the nature of trauma and being able to overcome our body’s biological processes of protecting us will help us achieve forgiveness and freedom from fear in regards to our enemies..

Our bodies have biological processes built in to keep us safe. When trauma occurs in the brain, our bodies skip over our thinking processes and immediately jump to fight or flight. Our brains do this without our consent. That is why the actions of traumatized people can be irrational; those actions often occur without the rational portions of their brains. When we are continuously introduced to trauma over and over and over again, and when we are not able to fight or flee, our brain goes into the next portion of survival mode – dissociation. When someone is stuck in a traumatizing situation with no chance for escape, their bodies will naturally escape within themselves. Their brains take them somewhere else. On the outside, this looks peaceful and accepting and even Christlike. But it’s not. It is survival mode. Here it is in a flow diagram:

Trauma (i.e. abused or severely reviled like Nephi) → Fight or Flight → Dissociation

So quick recap. Let’s say a person is tied to a ship by their brothers. They can’t flee or fight it off. Under normal circumstances, the person (even a person of faith) can find themselves dissociating in order to survive mentally. They detach from the physical circumstances and hide within their own brain. Let’s look at it in a modern circumstance.

Let’s say a person is being mentally abused by a family member. They do not feel the ability to fight or flight and so instead, they dissociate. They withdraw into themselves. THIS IS NOT FORGIVENESS. This is a reaction of trauma. It is quiet. It does not argue back. It looks more Christlike, but it does not feel heavenly. In fact, on the trauma reaction scale, it is worse than fighting back or fleeing the situation. I have seen dissociation praised as Christlike behavior, and I have seen people who are healing look very un-Christlike as they work back down the trauma reaction scale towards normalcy which requires working back through fighting or fleeing. There is anger. There are family members or friends who get cut off. It can look ugly.

But. When that anger and hurt and trauma gets truly worked through, there is a heavenly feeling on the other side. There is a moment on the other side when you become free from all of those trauma reactions and live your life happily despite the revilings of another. It ceases to affect you. You are healed. You feel forgiveness. You let go, and you find freedom. You’re no longer afraid of the revilings of man.

That is why Christ asks us to forgive, not so we can be pious or enable someone to hurt us further. He asks us to forgive because real forgiveness is real freedom from the revilings of others.

I once posted a status or something about forgiveness; I can’t quite remember the details to be honest. However, I had a friend reach out to me in anger. She was really upset that I had preached forgiveness. She had been brutally traumatized by an ex-spouse, and she was angry that I would suggest any kind of forgiveness despite the fact that it wasn’t specifically pointed towards her. She mockingly and angrily asked me if I would have her forgive him.

At that point in my life, I was too naive to understand what she had gone through and to truly understand what forgiveness meant. I can’t remember how I responded, but my reaction now would be, “I want you to heal so thoroughly that he no longer affects you, that you release yourself and him and feel peace and love.” Because that really is what I want for her.

If you go back and read Nephi’s Lament (2 Nephi 4), you will find that he had to work through this as well. One of my favorite lines in that entire chapter is, “Why am I angry because of mine enemy?” I love it because it makes Nephi human and relatable and real. He did get angry with his brothers. He did have to work through everything they did to him. Jacob had to work through watching it all happen as a young boy, and they were able to come out on the other side and preach the feeling of freedom from the reviling of others.

Perfect love casts out fear

Reading Nephi’s Lament can also give a glimpse in how we travel back towards forgiveness and healing and freedom. To put it in very short terms, we get to know our Savior on a personal level. I testify that this is true. I testify that the Savior’s love can be so all-consuming that it heals all the broken fragments left by others. He is real. He loves us. He is powerful. His love is powerful.

I testify that perfect love casts out fear. I testify that as we come to trust and be filled with His love, as we work through all the anger and trauma and finally heal, it will cast out the fear that is embedded in our lives. We will let go of the knee-jerk reactions that come with being reviled. We won’t have to force ourselves to feel more faithful, to “fear not the reproach of men,” it will naturally come.

I talked about this verse in the context of true trauma, but I also testify that this occurs on a much smaller scale. When we have that personal tie to the Savior, any reviling or reproach on any level will bounce off of us. We won’t have to fight off the discomfort and fear. It simply won’t reach us because of the security that we have found in Christ.

Approach Christ; you will find the negative feelings start to dissipate on their own. I know this is true.

 

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives.