Forgiveness ~

Fifty Quotes on Forgiveness

Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

"Forgiveness is God's invention for coming to terms with a world in which, despite their best intentions, people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And he invites us all to forgive each other."

Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

"None of us wants to admit that we hate someone...When we deny our hate we detour around the crisis of forgiveness. We suppress our spite, make adjustments, and make believe we are too good to be hateful. But the truth is that we do not dare to risk admitting the hate we feel because we do not dare to risk forgiving the person we hate."

Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

"We attach our feelings to the moment when we were hurt, endowing it with immortality. And we let it assault us every time it comes to mind. It travels with us, sleeps with us, hovers over us while we make love, and broods over us while we die. Our hate does not even have the decency to die when those we hate die--for it is a parasite sucking OUR blood, not theirs. There is only one remedy for it. [forgiveness]

Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

"You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well."

Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

"Their pain [the injurer's pain at having injured you] and your pain create the point and counterpoint for the rhythm of reconciliation. When the beat of their pain is a response to the beat of yours, they have become truthful in their feelings...they have moved a step closer to a truthful reunion."

Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

"...Forgiving is not having to understand. Understanding may come later, in fragments, an insight here and a glimpse there, after forgiving."

Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

"You can forgive someone almost anything. But you cannot tolerate everything...We don't have to tolerate what people do just because we forgive them for doing it. Forgiving heals us personally. To tolerate everything only hurts us all in the long run."

Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

"The rule is: we cannot really forgive ourselves unless we look at the failure in our past and call it by its right name."

Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

"When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it."

Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

"If we say that monsters [people who do terrible evil] are beyond forgiving, we give them a power they should never have...they are given the power to keep their evil alive in the hearts of those who suffered most. We give them power to condemn their victims to live forever with the hurting memory of their painful pasts. We give the monsters the last word."

Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve