Repentance is the escape clause

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the April 1988 Conference.

I like it when I find parallel conference talks across the decades. I especially like the realization that a doctrine taught thirty or forty years ago can feel just as immediate and relevant as something I heard three weeks ago. Here is Elder James R. Rasband, in April 2020:

The joyous truth on which Alma’s mind “caught hold” was not just that he himself could be made clean but also that those whom he had harmed could be healed and made whole.

As any parent can testify, the pain associated with our mistakes is not simply the fear of our own punishment but the fear that we may have limited our children’s joy or in some way hindered them from seeing and understanding the truth. The glorious promise of the Savior’s atoning sacrifice is that as far as our mistakes as parents are concerned, He holds our children blameless and promises healing for them. And even when they have sinned against the light—as we all do—His arm of mercy is outstretched, and He will redeem them if they will but look to Him and live.

And here is President Boyd K. Packer in April 1988:

I readily confess that I would find no peace, neither happiness nor safety, in a world without repentance. I do not know what I should do if there were no way for me to erase my mistakes. The agony would be more than I could bear. It may be otherwise with you, but not with me. 

An atonement was made. Ever and always it offers amnesty from transgression and from death if we will but repent. Repentance is the escape clause in it all. Repentance is the key with which we can unlock the prison from inside. We hold that key within our hands, and agency is ours to use it.