Healing the Wounded Heart Through Christlike Forgiveness: Roger Connors' Story - Latter-Day Lights

What if forgiveness goes beyond seeking justice—and actually becomes the path to healing?

In this week’s episode of Latter-Day Lights, Scott and Darla sit down with four-time New York Times bestselling author Roger Connors to explore the life-changing power of forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Roger shares his remarkable conversion story—from secretly reading the Book of Mormon despite his parents' opposition, and facing the possibility of losing his family over his decision to join the Church, to serving as a mission president, overcoming stage four cancer, and discovering how the Savior carried him through life's greatest trials.

Drawing from his new book, Healing the Wounded Heart, Roger explains the difference between divine vs. brotherly forgiveness, why forgiveness is ultimately a gift to ourselves, and how the enabling power of Jesus Christ can help us let go of bitterness, find peace, and experience lasting spiritual healing—even when reconciliation feels impossible.

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To READ Roger’s book, “Healing the Wounded Heart,” visit: https://a.co/d/0bwSFsUU

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Transcript

“Faith to Stay” by Scott Brandley

Scott Brandley 0:00

Hey there. As a Latter Day Lights listener, I want to give you a very special gift today. My brand new book, Faith to Stay. This book is filled with inspiring stories, powerful discoveries, and even fresh insights to help strengthen your faith during the storms of life. So if you're looking to be inspired, uplifted, and spiritually recharged, just visit faithtostay.com. Now, let's get back to the show. Hey

Intro

Scott Brandley 0:30

everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Darla Brandley 0:31

And I'm Darla Brandley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite hope, and inspire others.

Scott Brandley 0:40

On today's episode, we're going to hear from a four-time New York Times best-selling author, Roger Connors, talk about forgiving others who have wronged us and how we can forgive in a way that our hearts can be fully healed. Welcome to Latter Day Lights.

Welcoming Roger Connors to the show

Scott Brandley 1:12

Welcome to the show, Roger.

Roger Connors 1:13

Thank you very much. Good to be with you.

Scott Brandley 1:15

Yeah, it's so good to have you. So you and I kind of have a similar background. We both have business entrepreneurs. Both been on the Inc. 500, which is kind of fun. So I don't know. I've I'm in the software world. You're and tell us a little bit about your background and a little bit about you.

Roger Connors 1:35

So my my career has been leadership uh consulting and training. So I've been in the leadership space, writing, writing books and consulting with senior management teams around the world. And it's been an absolute blast to do that. Um I'm gonna convert to the church and uh excited to to share my my thoughts and story tonight.

Scott Brandley 1:54

So you said you live in Utah. Tell it do you have a family?

Roger Connors 1:58

Yes, uh I have five children and uh 12 grandchildren, and no one ever told me how great grandchildren would be, but man, are they a blast. So I'm having a great time as a grandpa.

Darla Brandley 2:10

That's awesome.

Scott Brandley 2:12

Yeah, so you've spent a lot of your basically your career in the business world doing the coaching and things. But today we're actually gonna talk about your conversion story and then a book that you've written about forgiveness, right? That's right. That's right. So

How Roger went from business to writing

Scott Brandley 2:30

um I know we're gonna get to it, but just give us a little teaser. How did you go from business to writing a religious book? What was the impetus there?

Roger Connors 2:40

You know, I've written about 11 books, and uh up to a few years ago, my books were all focused on leadership and human performance principles. So how do you maximize, optimize human performance and satisfaction? But as I've as I've had an opportunity to spend more time on the gospel writing side, I've just had a wonderful time digging deep into certain subjects that I thought could use clarification and amplification. And this notion of uh brotherly forgiveness is one that I felt like could use some amplifying. And so it's been fun to lean in on that piece.

Darla Brandley 3:16

Yeah, awesome. That's awesome.

Scott Brandley 3:18

We're excited to hear it. So why don't we turn the time over to you and tell us where your story begins.

Roger on growing up in the Lutheran Church

Roger Connors 3:25

You know, uh, I'm glad we're we have this format because I love talking about how I became acquainted with the church and became a member of the church. Uh my family was a little different. My uh father was an Episcopalian, my mother a Presbyterian, my sister's a Lutheran minister, and so is her husband, and my brother was a surfer. So everyone in our family had a different way of looking at things. We we decided early on that to avoid conflict, we wouldn't talk about religion, we'd just talk about politics. But that worked out so well. Um but as we as I was growing up, uh my parents would actually drop me off at the Lutheran church, and I was an acolyte at the Lutheran church. I'd wear the black robe and the white overdrop, and I would have the offering plates, and I would hand them to the priest, and I would light the candles before the service and put them out after the service. And but I never really connected with uh the teachings of the savior or religion in any significant way. And I started uh backpacking when I got into uh oh, probably 16, 17 years of age. And I remember my first time out in the mountains, um, I think it was this, we were probably in the Sierra Nevadas, and just watching, looking at these forests and the mountains and the beauty, and it just hit me that someone's behind this. Like there, there's something going on here that I don't know. And I started asking myself questions, you know, the standard questions, you know, where, so where did I come from? And where did all this come from? And uh, what's my purpose? And where do we go after we die? And those became really important questions to me. So I started reading, which wasn't my typical thing to do as a young teenager. And I I was reading actually, I there were two books. One was called Chariots of the Gods, and the other one was called Gods from Outer Space, and they were both New York Times bestselling books. And these were, you know, reasonable uh uh hypothesis of how we got here, right? I mean, everyone's trying to figure out how in the world did we end up on this planet. So I'm reading this stuff, and I'm talking with uh one of my friends who I'd play football with in the street, Roger Young. He was my same age, and uh we paled around quite a bit. And we were on our way to school one day, and I started telling him what I was doing. I was reading these books and I was trying to find answers to these questions. And he turned to me and he said, Well, Roger, I know the answers to those questions. And I'm thinking to myself, you're an idiot like me. How would you know the answers to these questions? We're just two dumb kids. And I said, Well, what do you think they are? And then he began to teach me about the plan of salvation, the pre-earth life and our purpose on earth and where we go after we die. And as these words fell from his lips, I knew it was true. I knew at that moment that what he was telling me was truth. And I was I was amazed. I was I was hooked. And uh

Roger reads The Book of Mormon

Roger Connors 6:20

he said, well, if you want to learn more about it, you should read something we call the Book of Mormon. And so he handed me a copy of the Book of Mormon. And this is back in the day when the church had a pretty uh imaginative marketing campaign. This I don't know if you remember this one, but this was the gold copy of the Book of Mormon. So it was like a gold plate and it had reformed Egyptian writing on the front of it. And it was shiny and you couldn't miss it.

Darla Brandley 6:41

So I took one.

Roger Connors 6:43

You know what I'm talking about. It was actually a pretty cool, pretty cool book.

Scott Brandley 6:48

Yeah.

Roger Connors 6:48

And uh so I took that home and I laid down in my my living room on the floor, and I started reading, you know, this gold book of Mormon, uh probably sometime in the evening. And my mother walked in and she looked over at me, and I'm sure her first thought was, What are you doing? Because she never saw me reading. Like he's reading. And she said, What are you reading? I said, Well, I'm reading the Book of Mormon. And she got this look on her face, it just kind of turned pale. And she didn't say another word. She just marched right over to me. She grabbed the book, turned around, spun out of the room, and took off. Never saw the book again. And I thought, hmm, wonder what's going on. We didn't, we didn't talk about it. And the next day, my my friend Roger, he said, Well, what did what'd you think? And I said, Well, my mother took the book. He says, Well, do you need another copy? I said, Yeah. So he said, All right, well, let me give you another copy. And this time he gave me the copy with the angel moroni blowing his horn on the front. Do you remember that one? And so I'm in the living room the next night, same spot with the book open, reading. My mother watched me, she says, Well, what are you doing now? And I said, Well, Mom, I'm reading the Book of Mormon. And I'm sure she wondered. I mean, the first one was gold, this one was blue. She's trying to track what's going on. And she just walked right over to me. She took the copy of the Book of Mormon out of my hands, turned around, and walked out of the room, never saw it again. I I literally, no exaggeration, went through 12 copies of the Book of Mormon before I actually found them in my mother's closet a year later up in the back. She didn't throw them away, she kept them, but uh she took them. I actually had to get imaginative uh as this process progressed. I I'd get my favorite copy of the magazine Backpacker Magazine, and I'd go out in the backyard and I'd be sitting in the backyard on a lounge chair. And when my mother would walk by, I'd be looking at Backpacker magazine and have the Book of Mormon underneath it. And then when she when she'd leave, I'd switch and put the Book of Mormon on top of the Backpacker magazine and finish reading it. I kind of I kind of kid with people that the spirit was so strong, I can testify that both Backpacker magazine and the Book of Mormon are true. That's how I that's how I finished. And it was it was compelling. I wasn't I wasn't a big reader. I'd also read the new, the red letter edition of the New Testament. You know, that's the red letter edition is the words of Christ are offset in red. So whenever you open it up, anything in red is the actual words of the Savior. And I kind of skipped everything else, and I was just reading the red. And uh I was fascinated at the doctrine that I was reading, that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us and use us. I was astonished at that. Never had heard anything like that before. And I'm sure they were teaching at Lutheran church, I just didn't hear

Roger gets baptized and gets kicked out of his home

Roger Connors 9:30

it. One day I finally got to the point where I was ready to be baptized. And at this point, my parents basically said I couldn't go to church, so I had to wait till I was 18. And when I turned 18, my birthday was coming up, and I walked into the kitchen. My mother was cooking this huge pot of chili on the stove, and she had the lid in her hand, she's stirring the pot of chili. And I said, Mom, I just want to let you know I'm turning 18, and I've decided that I'm gonna go ahead and be baptized into the Mormon church. And my mother was uh, she's a sweet lady. I don't want you to misunderstand what happened here. She's just a sweet lady, but at that moment, I think she was fearful that I was getting involved with a cult. She didn't understand it. She she was afraid of what she didn't know. And she took that lid and she hurled it at me like a frisbee. I dove to the ground, it crashed across the table on top of me. And I stood up and not being a very smart 17-year-old at the time, said, Well, I guess you're not coming to the baptism. And she said, Not only am I not coming, but you're not coming home. If you go join that church, don't even bother to come home because we'll have nothing to do with you ever again. It'll be over. Wow. And I remember thinking to myself, you know, how do how do I process this? I mean, here I am thinking about joining the Savior's church, and it's dividing our family. And I remember reading in Matthew, I think it's chapter 10, where the Savior said, He that loveth father, mother, or father more than me is not worthy of me. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And I thought, you know, what what he really said is um he's he's asking us to make a choice, and sometimes that choice is a really difficult one. And I knew that if I made this choice, that ultimately it would bless my entire family. So I went ahead and got baptized. It was it was the most amazing experience that evening. I I think there was a spiritual reward from the Lord for picking a path that was difficult. In fact, uh one of the members of the state presidency, uh uh Brother Durens, President Durens, he came up to me. He said, If your parents kick you out of your home, I want you to know you can come live with us until you go on your mission. So you have a place to stay. And I'll I'll never forget that kindness. In fact, who would have thought 30 years later, I would be his grandson's mission president? And when Elder Durns came into our mission, my first interview with him, when he got off the plane, I sat him down and I said, Okay, Elder Durens, if your companion kicks you out, you can come stay with me. You've got a place to stay. So I'm gonna return your father, your grandfather's favor. So I I uh was baptized.

Roger visits home + goes on a mission

Roger Connors 12:15

I came home that night thinking, well, I have nowhere else to go really right now. So let me just see what's going on. And so I went home and went through the side door, it was unlocked, and I crept up the stairs. You can never sneak up the stairs at our house. And my parents heard me and they called me into the room, and I walked into the room in the in the dark of the night, no lights, and I just heard my father's voice, and he said, Well, did you do it? Did you join the Mormon church? And I said, Well, yeah, Dad, I I did. And he said, Well, we've talked about it and we've decided to let you stay under one condition. I said, Well, what's that? And he said, You could never have anything to do with the church ever again. I said, Well, Dad, that's that's not how it works. Baptism is the beginning, it's not the end. And uh I'm committed to follow this through. And then there's this silence for what seemed like a long time. And my mother spoke up and she said, Well, we decided to let you stay. So I stayed for the next year as I prepared to go on a mission. I was called to serve in Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta mission, and uh prepared myself. And anytime my parents needed coffee or tea, they had me make it and pour it. They whatever they could do to kind of, you know, make this difficult. Um and then I went on my mission, and this is kind of the last part of the that story. I came home from my mission after two years, had an amazing experience. And uh I came back to really not a really supportive environment. I didn't have a lot of friends in the church. I wasn't a member of the church that long before I left, and so I didn't build a strong social network. And uh was trying to figure out what to do. And my bishop looked at me and he said, Well, you've been accepted to BYU. I was accepted to BYU's night school. And uh and I had decided not to go. And about a week before school started, he came to me and he said, Roger, I really, I really think you should go. Like you should just go do this. And so I prayed about it, thought about it, and thought, you know what?

Roger moves to Utah for BYU

Roger Connors 14:10

Great idea. I I'm gonna do it. So I packed up my car. It was an opal. I don't, you know, you'd have to go to Wikipedia to find out what an opal is, but I had my little opal, and uh the the uh uh driver's side window was was broken out. So I had a piece of plastic duct tape to cover it, and I had a gum wrapper holding up the rearview mirror, and you know, loaded up what little suitcase I had and drove the distance from Southern California to to Provo, Utah. And I arrived about seven o'clock at night, and I was on, I came up to where Center Street hits 900 east. And as I got to that intersection, I kind of sat there thinking, okay, now what? Like I have nowhere to go. Like I just came, but but I have nowhere to stay. I don't I don't know what to do. And at that moment, I had this feeling as I looked over to the to the right across the intersection, there was a small little apartment square, apartment uh building called Fairmount Square. And I received instruction to go there. Like everything to me said that's where you should go. So I pulled into the parking lot and I knocked on the door of the manager and no one answered, and I kept knocking, and finally uh she showed up and she said, Well, what do you need? And I said, Well, I need a place to stay. And she says, Are you going to school? I said, Yeah. She says, It starts on four days. I said, Yeah, I know. She said, Well, you're a real planner, aren't you? She really worked me over. And finally she said, Well, I have one bed left in the entire apartment complex. If you go to talk to the roommates and they agree, then you can have it. And so I said, Okay. And so she shut her door, and I'm walking down the hallway to this room, thinking, roommates? Hmm. Hadn't thought about that one before. Wonder what that's going to be like. So I walked up and I knocked on the door, and I was fairly uh nervous about what this would mean. And when the door opened, there stood on the other side of the threshold three of my former missionary buddies from the Georgia Atlanta mission. What? Wow. And they uh they said, Elder Connors, what are you doing here? I said, Elder Duffman, I need a place to stay. And uh he just said, Come on in, you found it. And that's where I stayed for my first year. It's amazing to me, you know, you follow that story from Southern California, 700 miles or whatever the distance is to Provo, Utah, and uh one door, and that's where I landed. And and I knew at that time that the blessings continued to flow because of making that you know difficult decision at the time to choose the right. And and my parents never they never became members of the church, they but they would come to baptisms of the grandchildren and participate and be involved and be friendly in that way, and that was a good thing. So uh things turned out well there. Wow.

Darla Brandley 17:10

That's amazing.

Roger Connors 17:16

Yeah, I you know, I really I really believe that we have to do our part. And this this also applies to when we offer forgiveness to other people. We have to do our part. But the real magic happens is when the Lord does his part. It's it's when he steps in and and bridges the gap and helps us get done things that we just can't get done on our own.

Scott Brandley 17:44

So where did

Roger’s life after school + life lessons

Scott Brandley 17:45

where did you go from there? Went you went to school.

Roger Connors 17:48

Went to school, went to to BYU, got my undergraduate in accounting and my MBA, and went out into the leadership consulting world in a in a consulting firm, and then started my own business about four years later, and had that the rest of my career. So it was it was an absolute blast. That's awesome.

Scott Brandley 18:08

And then you said you were a mission president?

Roger Connors 18:10

Yes, we served in the Washington Kennewick mission, and uh we were there from 2003 to 2000 or 2004 to 2007, and it was an amazing, incredible experience. We just had our 20th mission reunion, 20th, 20th, 20-ish year mission reunion with our missionaries. And uh, we had about 175 people come. It was, you know, their them and their families, their children were invited, and it was so fun to see these missionaries that we knew 20 years ago, and to see them now and with their families and their kids and their careers and what they've been doing. It was just just the the best thing ever.

Darla Brandley 18:50

Yeah, almost like a family reunion, you know.

Roger Connors 18:53

Totally like it.

Darla Brandley 18:54

You know how close you are. Yeah, that's awesome.

Scott Brandley 18:57

So, I mean, you don't look very old.

Roger Connors 19:02

Well, thank you very much.

Scott Brandley 19:06

So, like, were you still like running your business and stuff?

Roger Connors 19:10

Yeah. Yeah, I was uh 45 when I served. So I stepped out of the business. And you know, it was interesting because I thought I was missing the height of my career. Our our business was really starting to take off. We were we had clients all over the world. Uh some really exciting things were happening. And so when I left, it was it was it was a little hard to kind of step out of that career. Um But when I came back, it was amazing because then the next the next decade, I actually, I actually came home on a medical leave as a mission president. I was in the last two months of my mission, so I served almost the whole three years, but the last two months I was diagnosed with stage four non-Hodgkins lymphoma cancer. Oh and uh and as you know, there's no stage five. It was it was pretty it was pretty serious. Yeah. I think I think I was diagnosed on a Friday, and and we were we were there with all of our children, so we had our five children with us as as mission leaders, and we were all home the next Monday. Like the church got us home that fast.

Darla Brandley 20:16

Yeah, because it's serious, it was very serious.

Roger Connors 20:20

And Elder Raspan was my uh direct my presiding leader that I reported to at the time. And he and Clark Hinckley gave us a blessing, and we came home and received the treatment, and you know, we've been essentially cured. I've been essentially cured of that disease and grateful for it. It's been been an important few years since then.

Darla Brandley 20:41

Another miracle, right?

Roger Connors 20:43

No question. In fact, uh one of the side effects of of the treatment, the steroid treatment, was something called avascular necrosis, and it affects your joints. And so I've had both shoulders replaced and both hips replaced. And uh I remember being in the temple one time when I when I was getting the fourth joint replaced, thinking, when does this stop? I mean, is this gonna be knees and ankles? And I mean, does this just go on? Feeling a little sorry for myself. And uh I had this impressionably Yeah, and I I had this impression in the endowment room. I was sitting there and it was it was this kind of same voice I had heard before. And the voice essentially said, This is not a problem, this is a solution. And when that came, everything changed. I mean, I I then understood, oh, I'm getting better, not worse. This is this is addressing the issues. And uh today I'm probably in the best shape I've ever been in in my life. I play pickleball for three hours a day with a coach, and I have a personal trainer that I do weightlifting three days a week. And uh I can move and run and play and compete.

Scott Brandley 22:00

it's been great so that is so wonderful i love that twist of mindset right like it's it's that twist and then things make sense yeah you feel like you feel like it's just it's you know it's all bad news but it and the lord knows these things and it it wasn't all bad news and some of these hard things we go through are actually meant to help us move forward and that certainly is what happened for me yeah I love that yeah well I'm sure you know Tony who Tony Robbins is right yeah you bet so what some of the things that that I love that he says is life happens for you not to you yeah right even and that's hard to like you you want to believe that when hard things are happening right but it sure doesn't feel that way but you know that's that's that's scriptural in the Book of Mormon it we're taught we're taught to act and not be acted upon yeah and uh that was actually in fact my leadership practice in in the business world really had that as a foundation principle don't don't be a victim take accountability for your circumstances and do everything you can do ask yourself the question when everything else seems to be going wrong or you're facing difficult challenges ask yourself the question what else can I do?

Roger Connors 23:16

And that's the most important question to ask is what do you do next? What else can I do? That's when you act and you're not just acted upon then you add to that the spiritual progress that God gives us with the power that He can give us to accomplish amazing things and you can't be defeated.

Scott Brandley 23:33

You might be delayed it might be difficult it may even hurt but we won't be defeated in the end yeah I love that awesome

Divine forgiveness vs Brotherly forgiveness

Scott Brandley 23:45

so um so you get back from your mission 20 years passes well not quite 20 years but like so where did you get this idea to write this book?

Roger Connors 23:58

You know I was thinking um I mean what what I've what I've learned in this process of writing this book is that everyone has these experiences where they're really tested on their ability to forgive someone or some situation in their life. Everybody pretty much has a story to tell and I'm I'm I'm not unlike anyone else I have that story too and as I was thinking pondering about what does it mean to really forgive? Like have I done it? Have I really forgiven uh it caused me to go deep into the subject and as I did I recognize what I think is a gap in understanding that many Latter day saints have about this notion of brotherly forgiveness. And it stems from this idea that we use one word to describe two things where in Hebrew two different words are used to describe two different things but related. So we use one word the word forgiveness to describe both what I would call divine forgiveness which is when we repent of our sins and seek forgiveness from God, that divine forgiveness and brotherly forgiveness when we forgive another person for wrongdoing towards us. And the problem there and in Hebrew they have two different words there's a word for divine forgiveness and there's a word for brotherly forgiveness but in our scriptures there's just one. And the problem is we commingle the principles and why it's important is this divine forgiveness is conditional. God forgives our sins based upon the what he actually the scriptures call the conditions of repentance. You know we'll we'll feel sorrow we'll make restitution we'll apologize you know there's certain things that we do to put ourself in a position to receive the grace of God to be forgiven of our sins. And that repentance process is key to receiving that. But brotherly forgiveness is unconditional. The Lord said of you of you it is required to forgive all men not if they repent not if they apologize not if they make restitution just you need to forgive. And in fact the Doctrine Covenants in section 64 goes a little bit further and says if you don't then you're under condemnation and you are guilty of the greater sin. Right. And I I when I was reading that I I thought well let's just take let's just take an example let's say someone murders someone that we cared about and I have a hard time forgiving the murderer are you telling me that if I don't forgive the murderer then I'm guilty of the greater sin? And how in the world could that be true? So that's what led me down uh the course of saying I want to learn more about this and really drill into this and study and understand it. And that's what I've had a chance to do and it's just been a marvelous journey to do that.

Darla Brandley 26:48

Oh it's fascinating.

About Roger’s book, “Healing the Wounded Heart”

Darla Brandley 26:50

It's so awesome.

Scott Brandley 26:52

So what's the name of your book so people that are watching.

Roger Connors 26:57

Yeah so it's it's the name is Healing the Wounded Heart, Forgiving One Another Through the Enabling Power of Jesus Christ. And it's available on Amazon and it comes out July 1st and it's probably the book I've enjoyed the most writing of all the books I've I've ever written. And it was one of the one of the books that I've learned the most from as I've researched and written okay isn't that the purpose sometimes is to is to learn more for ourselves and then share it with others. Absolutely and and as I've talked to people what I've found is that there is this common misunderstanding that my forgiveness can be kind of conditioned. I mean I forgiving somebody else it's it's kind of okay to you know hold back a little bit until they've made an effort or showed made restitution or showed some remorse but in God's eyes that actually isn't the case. Now I when I studied when I studied the this topic I went in and looked at all the general conference talks in the last 25 years both uh are are uh men leaders and women leaders so any any church leader who's spoken in a general conference and in my review of that what I saw was the Lord understands that it can take time that there's uh these things are difficult and some of us have been have been victimized quite unfairly in significant ways and God has empathy for that and there it it there's a realization that it takes time and and the the teachings of the leaders of the church reflect that that forgiveness is something you shouldn't give up on. You should keep working on it and be patient with yourself. So that's true. But what's also true is we need to get there like what the what the scriptures have said and what the Savior's teachings are is if we don't forgive, then we can't be forgiven. And our our ability to be forgiven of our wrongdoing is based quite largely upon our ability to forgive others of their wrongdoing. And so this is like a really important thing to kind of get right and understanding understanding the doctrine at the outset is really key that forgiveness is something I need to I need to get to it may take a little effort and time but I need to get there. And it's something that will have a big payoff on the end because what the the big realization is that brotherly forgiveness has almost nothing to do with them the wrongdoer. It has everything to do with me the victim and what the Lord is saying is let me handle the justice. Let me handle the restitution let me handle all of that. You don't need to worry about any of that I will perfectly handle that all you need to do is not let this bog you down the the only way that your burden can be light is that you need to let me carry it. And when you let me carry it then that burden

God will invoke justice

Roger Connors 30:00

is lifted from you and that's the payoff of brotherly forgiveness.

Scott Brandley 30:04

That's awesome I think as people we we almost want the person that's hurt us to pay for what they've done in some way before we feel like okay they've got their just like their due do justice now I can forgive them right yeah but ultimately those are mutually exclusive events. Regardless of whether the person repents or asks for your forgiveness that has nothing to do with you. It it's it's you like you said it's it's what you do with that and how you and your forgiveness of that person that makes all the difference.

Roger Connors 30:46

Yeah in fact the scriptures actually say that in the in the Lord's words he says vengeance is mine saith the Lord I mean the God will will invoke justice. He will hold every person accountable if they haven't repented of their sins they will pay the in the scriptures use the term the uttermost farthing you know and the farthing was like the smallest valued coin that you could find in the day. And so the Lord's saying even the littlest idie bidious wrongdoing is going to be accounted for I'm gonna handle all that uh no one's gonna escape justice and accountability no one so we kind of check that one off the list and say okay he he's got the ball just as you were saying and and now it's about me letting go of any bitterness or resentment. I remember just recently I was playing pickleball and uh we were on a in a in a it was it wasn't a tournament but it was a tournament like thing where you play several teams and then you get to what they call a king's court. So if you've won, you get to be on that court and then people try to play you and bump you off the court. So my and my partner got to the King's court and the sun was shining in a way that we were playing into the sun which is a real bummer when you're playing pickleball because the ball gets lost in the sun. And so it was our turn to kind of change sides. And so the next team was coming on and we were going to move to the non-sunny side and this this I think a brother I didn't I don't know for sure but he looked like a good faithful high priest to me he was on the other side of the court and I said well we're we're gonna come over and change sides and he he says no you're not I said well yeah I mean it's our turn we've been playing here and now we're gonna switch to that side he says no no you're not I said seriously he said seriously yeah you're not coming over and so we played the game and it was really bugging me. Like I don't usually get really bothered by these things. I just let them go. It's no big deal you know just move on but for some reason this one was sticking with me. And the next day the thought would come back to me a little bit and when it did I felt this kind of emotional visceral feeling for a minute like ugh and then it took three or four days before that just it just evaporated went away and now it's not a big deal. And I I told my wife I said I think I think the Lord did that to me intentionally so that I would remember as I talk about this topic that this is an emotional topic. It's not an intellectual one. When something bad happens to us it's almost like we can't control it. It just it just affects us in such a way that that makes it difficult to release. And when we're carrying it it is a burden. I mean it it shapes how we feel and it's the stress that we feel and the discouragement that comes with it. So it's important to remember that when we offer brotherly forgiveness we're offering ourselves the gift. It's it's really to us that we're giving the gift to relief release us of that burden. And I just want you to know I have no bad feelings toward this brother next time I see him if I can hit him with the pickleball I probably will but other than that I'm in good shape.

Scott Brandley 33:51

That's funny

Enduring to the end + Compassionate reappraisal

Scott Brandley 33:56

forgiveness is an interesting topic because it's something that we have to deal with our entire life right I think when when you when we talk about endure to the end that's one of those topics that goes with you right and no question.

Roger Connors 34:13

And in fact I would just say we often have to forgive again oh it seems isn't it like it's layers I mean the same thing like we might think we're done that we took care of it we handled it but then it comes back could be years later or or you know whatever time period but then we have to we kind of got to go through that process again. And that's one of the reasons I was asking myself the question about the situation I was involved with is have I really forgiven because it seems like I recycle periodically back to the same incident. I'm in a better place each time I recycle but I tend to recycle a bit and I'm like okay well what's that all about and I think forgiveness is it's it's not an event it's definitely a process over time.

Darla Brandley 35:01

It is because it's almost like you're like you think okay I've forgiven and then you go on and then something happens to remind you and it's like it's happening again. Maybe not to the same level but it is still it's like it's happening again and that emotional response comes back and you have to think it through again and process and be like no I I am forgiving and it does it takes several times many times.

Roger Connors 35:26

Yeah and and Darla I was I was shocked when I went into this that the forgiveness kind of uh they didn't call it brotherly forgiveness they just called it forgiveness is a secular psychotherapy uh therapeutic approach that that psychotherapists have been using forgiveness with clients for 20 years. Uh in fact that what was fun is I was able to go to chat GPT and say who are the top researchers in this area and it was Harvard, Stanford and and Yale I think and it gave me the three names of the top researchers and I said do you know their email addresses and ChatGPT says well I I just happen to know their email addresses. So I used those thinking oh there's no way these are going to be right and I emailed all three of these and I said would you mind if I use your model in my book because my readers are taking a religious point of view but I'd love for them to see the secular approach to forgiveness and see the comparison. All three responded within a couple days and said yes. And what was interesting is I found that the it's called compassionate reappraisal the the basic tool they used in psychotherapy to deal with forgiveness, the common tool between the three models, the top three models in the field was was this notion of compassionate reappraisal where if you can get people to have empathy for the wrongdoer, their ability to offer forgiveness increases exponentially. And so one of the practices was they they would have you actually hold a trial on the wrongdoer. So like this guy at the pickleball court like I'd hold a trial and first I'd be the judge and I'd want to create an impartial you know environment and then I'd be the prosecuting attorney and then I'd go at it and then I'd be the defense attorney and I would I would defend him what would be what would be his story? What's his side of the story? What what's been going on for him? And then I'd be the jury trying to weigh the evidence and take and take a conclusion. And they find that as people hold these courts that their ability that's why they call it compassionate reappraisal as they reappraise the situation they become more compassionate for the circumstances of the wrongdoer and are then therefore better enabled to offer forgiveness. I thought that was really quite an interesting interesting thing.

Scott Brandley 37:45

And not unlike the notion of having charity right yeah yeah exactly I was just thinking that like you know per pure love of Christ right that that empathy towards our fellow human beings right yeah

The three R’s of brotherly forgiveness

Scott Brandley 38:00

I love that yeah so in your book you talk about the three R's of brotherly forgiveness. Yeah so tell us a little bit about that.

Roger Connors 38:11

So for complete healing so this is the idea of how do I get to that place where I feel completely resolved, completely healed. And the first R is restitution and it's a stumbling block for a lot of people and and if you break the idea down to one simple idea it's this Christ has already made restitution for the wrongdoing that has been done to you. It's done. It's been incorporated into the atonement it's been pre-understood, foreordained it's been done. So you may be waiting for worldly restitution but that's not necessary for you to offer forgiveness. That restitution's already been made for and so that's that's the first R. The second R is reconciliation. And that's the idea that in the end God wants us to all be reconciled meaning he doesn't want you to just forgive them. He wants you to be reconciled to them. Now in the pickleball example easy right I mean it's a little thing we get over it I shake his hand we make friends we're reconciled no big deal but if it's something more serious that's really that's really tough. And so many of the leaders of the church I think have acknowledged that reconciliation may not happen in this life. It may be the next life that those things can occur. But to be celestial beings we have to be reconciled and that that's what the the prayer in in John 17 was all about in the New Testament when the Savior prayed that we might be one as we are with the Father that we might be one in him. He wants us all to be to be one. And then the third R is repentance and that's the idea that you know what if I withhold forgiveness and how I react to the wrongdoer that sometimes means I'm also doing wrongdoing that I'm sharing stories about them that may or may not be accurate uh may or may or may not lift and build and maybe I'm making some mistakes along the way as I stumble through this process of forgiveness. So for complete healing, for full complete healing, I need to understand restitution has already been made I need to know that my end goal isn't just forgiveness, it's someday reconciliation, maybe in the next life. And finally, if I've made some errors along the way then now's a good time to change it. And the best way I think to know that you've really forgiven someone is how your narrative about what happened changes. When we truly have completely forgiven someone we talk about differently we think about it differently we remember it differently and when that narrative changes that's a great flag to us to tell us oh man, I've really been touched. And that's probably my last key point on this in all the stories that I've heard and everybody has a story and I people stop me all the time I was I was doing the audio book just the other day and the engineer who was helping with it he stops me in the middle of chapter two and I I thought he was going to tell me I need to correct something and I misspoke. And he and I I told him look just tell me it's fine you don't need an explanation just I'll just redo whatever you tell me. He goes no no Roger I want to tell you my story we're in the middle of recording the book. He says let me just tell you my story. So he tells me the story about his dad and it it's just that's just the case and what I've heard common in everyone's story is that as they've as they've worked to to offer forgiveness there comes a moment when it just changes for them and it's not them that changed it. It's the enabling power of Jesus Christ that touches them and causes that change to happen.

Scott Brandley 41:46

Our ability to forgive is not based on our ability to forgive it's based on our ability to turn to the savior to receive his gift of forgiveness yes I love that what you're what you're saying is what happens to us I'm trying I'm trying to understand what you're saying. What happens to us is taken care of by the savior then we try to make it right with whatever happened to us with the person that that that interaction happened with and then we continually try to repent for the things that we do that impact other people because that's the part that's conditional.

Roger Connors 42:32

That's right.

Darla Brandley 42:33

And in so doing we act we're not acted upon we don't remain a victim of someone else's actions but we act in a way that God empowers yeah and I love that everything is every you can do anything through Christ and repentance and not repentance I mean forgiveness is through Christ as well and you can do anything through Christ. So you can forgive through Christ.

Roger Connors 43:00

Yeah and my benefactor and the benefactor is us. We are the ones who who are the benefactors and we sometimes I think people feel like well if I forgive I'm letting them off the hook like I I just I don't feel good about that. And you're not letting them off the hook because that's divine forgiveness. That's another track whether they're on the hook or not that's the savior in them on a separate track called divine forgiveness. Brotherly forgiveness is all about you and your ability to be free.

Darla Brandley 43:33

Yeah because it really is a weight a weight that you carry when you cannot forgive someone it is a weight.

Roger Connors 43:40

Yeah let that go is feels very uplifting totally I I've been uh working out with this personal trainer and I I have this 20 pound weight I use for ab work and I picked the 20 pounds up the other day and I've lost about 20 pounds in the last, I don't know, since January and I picked this weight up and I thought Oh man, I was carrying around this 20 pounds. Jeez, this is kind of heavy. Like, I can't believe I was carrying this around. And then I was thinking, how heavy is the spiritual weight that we carry sometimes with these burdens? Is it like this 20-pound weight? And what happens when you when you let it go? How how liberating is that?

Darla Brandley 44:20

Yeah. Very spiritually uplifting.

Scott Brandley 44:24

Do

On forgiving ourselves + Handling regret

Scott Brandley 44:25

you have any thoughts about people forgiving themselves?

Roger Connors 44:30

Yes. And I have a chapter on that in the book. It's uh the leaders of the church have talked about that. And that we're usually the hardest, the hardest person we for us to forgive is ourselves. And I think sometimes we have this mental thing that mental health specialists call rumination. I like we all most of us call it chasing rabbit holes, right? Uh, where we we rethink and replay the narrative again and again and again. And it convinces us mentally that there's nothing that can be done. And I think it's truly important that it is when the savior said of you is required to forgive all men and women, obviously, he's talking about not everyone else only, but also ourselves, that it's required of us to forgive ourselves in addition to all those other wrongdoers out there that we've experienced. And that can be really difficult. Uh, but boy, is it an important part of the process.

Darla Brandley 45:32

It is.

Roger Connors 45:33

Yeah.

Scott Brandley 45:36

Well, I know that's something that I think we all struggle with. Um, you know, and that's the thing is that we do.

Roger Connors 45:44

Well, part of that is regret. You know, when I was I was doing this, Daniel Pink is a is a well-known uh New York Times author, and most mostly kind of in the business human performance world, and he did an amazing amount of research on the notion of regret. And he he said this notion that some people have that they have no regrets. And I so you might meet someone that says, I have no regrets. He's like, that's ridiculous. Of course you have regrets. Everybody has regrets. We need to have regrets. And he's done all this research kind of supporting the notion that regret is a normal, natural human emotion that we need to have that causes us to kind of keep moving forward in the right way. And sometimes our regrets that we have cause us to feel we're still guilty. They cause us to feel like, you know, we've made a mistake we can't overcome. But we know through the teachings of Savior and His Atonement that all mistakes can be overcome. But that doesn't mean that regret will leave us. I regret mistakes I've made throughout my life that I know I've been forgiven of, that I've moved on and done better with. But the regret still remains that, you know, you you you made a stupid mistake at this time or that time in your life. That's just normal. And we shouldn't interpret that, misinterpret that as being not forgiven.

Scott Brandley 47:00

Right. You made a mistake, you're not the mistake.

Roger Connors 47:03

Oh, I love that. Great thought. Yeah.

Scott Brandley 47:08

Wow. Okay. Well, why you've got a lot of good deep thoughts here. I it it's obvious that you spend a lot of time really thinking this through. And um I I love what you've shared with us so far. So give us as as you you're getting ready to publish this, it's it's gonna be out here. Well, by the time this this

On creating transformational change

Scott Brandley 47:30

podcast comes out, it will be out. So give us, you know, some of your thoughts and and you know, like looking back at this experience, you know, share share some of that with us.

Roger Connors 47:47

Yeah, I would say one of the most profound things that's happened for me is really getting clear on the doctrine. The doctrine really does guide our thoughts. You know, our our beliefs guide our actions, and our actions drive our results. The question is, where do our beliefs come from? And I've a lot of my writings in the business world have been about this concept because we try to help leaders create transformational change and they have to deal with how people think, not just how they act. The mistake many leaders make is they treat people just as though they act and they don't think. And so they manage behavior and they're not trying to manage beliefs. And it's really important to understand that you have to affect people at the belief level to create transformational change. And that's true about any individual. You know, when I joined the church, um, the first thing that happened to me was my beliefs changed. Uh, I realized there is a loving father in heaven who has some plans for me and some expectations. And then I changed my behavior to conform to those beliefs. So the question becomes where do our beliefs come from? And our beliefs stem from the experiences that we have in our life. And in a spiritual sense, my spiritual experiences with the Book of Mormon and being taught true doctrine by Roger Young walking down the hill to school, when he said, I know the answer to that. And I said, No, you don't. You're a dumb kid like I am. How would you know the answer to that? When he taught me true doctrine, that true doctrine anchored in my soul. And that was a spiritual experience that then formed my beliefs and guided my actions for the rest of my life. Like I'm here today, I don't know how many years later, I was, what, 16 or 17 then, something like that, 67 now. And uh I owe every good thing that's happened to me to the church. And so, how profound was that moment? That that moment in time when we were walking down the hill, I had no idea that it would have that impactful, have that much impact on the rest of my life. But that's the power of true doctrine. And so, what I try to do in this book is lay a doctrinal foundation. So I take my time working through it. In fact, this book's like a big therapy session. It's like you start at the beginning and I say, now pick something, pick something in your life where it's you're struggling to forgive. Use that. And in fact, one of my editors said, I tried it, Roger. I said I was going to put this to the test when I went through it. And she went through it. She said, by the end of the book, I was able to kind of let go of this thing. And it's it's not because of anything I did, it's just because we laid the foundation of true doctrine and it layers. You kind of go, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. And finally your beliefs change. And when your beliefs change, then the actions just flow.

Darla Brandley 50:39

Yeah.

Scott Brandley 50:40

I love that.

Darla Brandley 50:42

Yeah. I think that's the way the Lord teaches us too, is building like this, you know, layer upon layer, line upon line, you know, like that kind of thing. That that's very that's a fundant fun fundamental doctrine as well, is how the Lord teaches us. So yeah, I love that.

Scott Brandley 51:02

Well, Roger, this has been amazing. Uh, thank you so much for coming on and and sharing some of your thoughts and and your story with us today. Um,

Final thoughts + Where to find Roger’s work

Scott Brandley 51:16

as we kind of wrap things up, do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with those that are listening?

Roger Connors 51:22

Just that uh forgiving others is usually a hard journey and that it takes time. And uh that's okay. Seems like the the teachings of the leaders of the church show empathy for that and understanding that it does. I don't I think when the Lord says of you is required to forgive all men, he didn't say now. Of you is required to forgive all men now. Um, although I think there's an expectation we get there as soon as we can.

Darla Brandley 51:50

Uh and that we want to.

Roger Connors 51:52

And that we want to. But difficult things can can take time. That's okay. Be patient with yourself with that. And know that through the enabling power of Jesus Christ, no other power on earth, no other way can that be done. But with him, it can be done, and it will be a blessing. Awesome.

Scott Brandley 52:14

Well, thanks again for coming on. Um, remind the viewers the name of your book.

Roger Connors 52:20

The name of the book is Healing the Wounded Heart, Forgiving One Another Through the Enabling Power of Jesus Christ, and it's available on Amazon and and Cedar Fort. Awesome.

Darla Brandley 52:29

Awesome.

Scott Brandley 52:30

Well, we'll we'll make sure to put the link below so that people can go get that. So thanks again for coming on and and sharing your thoughts. This is a really important topic, especially in the world we live in today. I think people can just get upset and and uh I don't know, like it feels like people are just so willing to you know say bad things about their neighbor, be unforgiving, be um vindictive. I don't know. There's so much of that in in the world today, and like bully people through social media, and uh you know this message is very timely. So we really appreciate you coming on and and sharing it.

Outro

Scott Brandley 53:20

And for those of you watching, go and and and get this book. Um and if you have the opportunity, you know, make sure that you you share this. So hit that share button. Let's do our five-second missionary work and and get that get this message out there so that we can we can share Roger's message with with those that need to hear it. So thanks again, Roger, for coming on. Really appreciate it.

Roger Connors 53:53

Thank you, Scott and Darla. It's been great.

Scott Brandley 53:55

Yeah. And thanks everyone for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next week with another episode of Latter Day Lights. Till then, take care. Bye bye.