To err is human, to forgive divine.

- Alexander PopeWhat wouldn't we give for a second chance? Who among us doesn't wish that we could call back a few moments of time to get things right?

Life is full of mistakes, and everyone makes them. We make comments that we would give anything to retract. We misjudge people and lose out on friendships. We make errors in judgment, decisions that seem perfectly sensible at the time but in retrospect make us cringe. Snippets of conversations we regret float up from the past and we wince at their still-potent bite.

We see or hear something wrong and make a bad assumption. We think we have it right, but we identified the wrong problem. We believe something, but it's incorrect.

A whole weedy garden of mistakes blooms in our lives. We've learned to accept them, because for the most part that's how we learn. No child stands upright and begins walking immediately. No missionary called to a foreign land and trying to speak a new language gets by without blundering through his first conversations. Few new workers start out with a mastery of their craft.

Sometimes the mistakes we make are serious ones. A bad error in judgment can cost us dearly financially. Taking our eyes away from the highway brings serious injury or even death. A lapse of moral judgment causes anguish and grief to young and old alike. Mistakes become transgressions and we fall into sin.

It's amazing, really, how many ways there are for us to make errors and mistakes. And it's interesting how judgmental we become of others when they make them too. Children are quick to pick up on the failings of their parents, and parents find themselves forever in the business of pointing out the mistakes of their children. Sadly, the errors of others often become a rationale for our own mistakes.The truth is, there's very little to be gained by dwelling on our mistakes. Mistakes serve their best function when they teach us. We first have to face them, admit them, then correct them if possible. Having learned our lesson, we are obliged to push onward.

President Ezra Taft Benson addressed this idea once. "I hope we will not live in the past," he said. "People who live in the past don't have very much future. There is a great tendency for us to lament about our losses, about decisions that we have made that we think in retrospect were probably wrong decisions. There is a great tendency for us to feel

badT about the circumstances with which we are surrounded, thinking they might have been better had we made different decisions. We can profit by the experiences of the past. But let us not spend our time worrying about decisions that have been made, mistakes that have been made. Let us live in the present and in the future." (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 387.)

If the mistakes have become an error, and if the error turned into a transgression, then is the time to make things right with ourselves and the Lord. As the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith in Jackson County, Mo., in the early days of the Church, "Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more. By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins - behold, he will confess them and forsake them." (D&C 58:42,43.)

Through His infinite atonement, Christ took upon Himself our sins and made it possible for them to be forgiven through the gospel plan. And that grace is made available to everyone. Elder Hugh B. Brown offered some wise insights into our human capacity to make mistakes. "Keep your eye on the Savior of the world," he said. "Make Him your example. Remember that He is your brother and make Him your ideal and you will know He is reaching down to help you. He is with you and if you have made mistakes and have truly repented, He will forgive you.

"Don't be deceived by the wiles of the adversary and think because you may have made mistakes that you have committed the unpardonable sin. This gospel is primarily the gospel of second chance, the gospel of repentance. . . . Do not insist upon remembering what God is willing to forget. Everyone of us

hasT made mistakes, but though we must pay the full price, our mistakes should be remembered only as guides to better lives in the future." (The Abundant Life, p. 270-271.)

The truth is, we aren't going to get a second life, and we can't turn back time to correct our mistakes. But we can start over with the life we have. The gospel offers us the opportunity to correct our mistakes - to right our lives. We should grab tightly on to the opportunities we have to do this.