Welcome.

I have a really fun convert friend. She’s always doing something fun to bless my life or increase my faith in Christ. She hit her one-year mark as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last Sunday, and she’s just over the moon excited about her endowment in a few days hence. She’s been on the count down, and every time I see her, she updates me on how many days she has left until she can step her big toes through temple doors.

She’s just refreshingly fun.

On her birthday (which was recent), myself and my ministering companion took her some birthday cheer, but she outdid us. She had gifts for us. One thing she handed us were two very cute dinosaurs – one each.

As she gave them to us, she said (as best I can recall), “Let go of your mistakes. Put them in the past with the dinosaurs.”

I laughed and thanked her for such a symbolically precious little stuffed animal as I held a very cute white and purple-pink dino with a red heart on the underside of its left foot.

I’ve been thinking about her words this week. Right now, I have my little dino cradled in this plant holder (my plant died a few days ago) away from Lily’s eager teeth and happy paws.

“Put [your mistakes] in the past with the dinosaurs.” Isn’t that what the Lord has asked of us, too?

In Isaiah, we read: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)

Come, He says, let me help you. My blood compensated for your mistakes. They can be a thing of the past – with the dinosaurs. Your soul suffocating sins can be gone – from crimson-colored stains to a white as wool wonder.

Where there has been adequate and accepted by God repentance, our mistakes can be filed right where they belong: in the past with the dinosaurs.

In the April 2019 General Conference, Sister Sharon Eubank delivered a message about the Savior and His light that is one of the best I’ve ever heard or read in my humble opinion. Of that scripture in Isaiah, she said:

“The scarlet dye of the Old Testament was not only colorful but also colorfast, meaning that its vivid color stuck to the wool and would not fade no matter how many times it was washed. Satan wields this reasoning like a club: white wool-stained scarlet can never go back to being white. But Jesus Christ declares, ‘My ways [are] higher than your ways,’ and the miracle of His grace is that when we repent of our sins, His scarlet blood returns us to purity. It isn’t logical, but it is nevertheless true.”

(Christ: The Light That Shines in Darkness, Eubank, S., April 2019, General Conference)

What joy and hope! It is, above all, first and foremost true!

So you’ve made a mistake. Me, too. Lots of them. Daily. Hourly. Too often, by the minute. They belong in the past. With the dinos.

At the first recognition of my error or sin, I have begun to stop immediately and ask God for forgiveness, for mercy, for pardon, for release of my sinful act, for banishment of it with the dinosaurs.

As my mistakes are forgiven and forgotten by God, I want to be better at letting them float away to the past – where they belongs. With the dinosaurs.

I want to improve at receiving the grace of Christ as it comes flowing into my heart and soul (where it was intended to reside) to work the miracle and transformation of “scarlet blood…to purity.”

A new me in the mirror every morning. One whose yesterday’s repented of sins are somewhere in the past hanging out with the dinosaurs.

My precious, insightful friend is right: once repented of, our mistakes belong in the past with those dinosaurs – no longer to hinder or pull us down.

I’ve never been a big fan of dinosaurs, but I really love my gifted one. It’s for sure cute, but more than that, when I glance at it every day, it reminds me of something really important:

Unto all the world: “Let go of your mistakes. Put them in the past with the dinosaurs.“