Forgiveness

[On The Way back]

If it helps one person it is good enough for me, has helped me as well, I think also knowing that our world has changed helps.

A few more

All the years you have waited for them to "make it up to you" and all the
energy you expended trying to make them change (or make them pay) kept the
old wounds from healing and gave pain from the past free rein to shape and
even damage your life. And still they may not have changed. Nothing you have
done has made them change. Indeed, they may never change. Inner peace is
found by changing yourself, not the people who hurt you. And you change
yourself for yourself, for the joy, serenity, peace of mind, understanding,
compassion, laughter, and bright future that you get."

"It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited."

"Not even God can make something fair out of what is intrinsically unfair.
Only one thing can be done. Something must break through the crust of
unfairness and create a chance for a new fairness. Only forgiveness can make
the breakthrough."

"I worry about fast forgivers. They tend to forgive quickly in order to
avoid their pain. Or they forgive fast in order to get an advantage over the
people they forgive. And their instant forgiving only makes things
worse...People who have been wronged badly and wounded deeply should give
themselves time and space before they forgive...There is a right moment to
forgive. We cannot predict it in advance; we can only get ourselves ready
for it when it arrives...Don't do it quickly, but don't wait too long...If
we wait too long to forgive, our rage settles in and claims squatter's
rights to our souls."

"Spoken forgiving, no matter how heartfelt, works best when we do not demand
the response we want. I mean that when we tell people we forgive them, we
must leave them free to respond to our good news however they are inclined.
If the response is not what we hoped for, we can go home and enjoy our own
healing in private."

"Forgiving does not usually happen at once. It is a process, sometimes a
long one, especially when it comes to wounds gouged deep. And we must expect
some lapses...some people seem to manage to finish off forgiving in one
swoop of the heart. But when they do, you can bet they are forgiving flesh
wounds. Deeper cuts take more time and can use a second coat."

"Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted
memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to
remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future."

"Forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting...A wounded person
cannot--indeed, should not--think that a faded memory can provide an
expiation of the past. To forgive, one must remember the past, put it into
perspective, and move beyond it. Without remembrance, no wound can be
transcended."

"Forgiveness is a rebirth of hope, a reorganization of thought, and a
reconstruction of dreams. Once forgiving begins, dreams can be rebuilt. When
forgiving is complete, meaning has been extracted from the worst of
experiences and used to create a new set of moral rules and a new
interpretation of life's events."

"In a way, forgiving is only for the brave. It is for those people who are
willing to confront their pain, accept themselves as permanently changed,
and make difficult choices. Countless individuals are satisfied to go on
resenting and hating people who wrong them. They stew in their own inner
poisons and even contaminate those around them. Forgivers, on the other
hand, are not content to be stuck in a quagmire. They reject the possibility
that the rest of their lives will be determined by the unjust and injurious
acts of another person."

"Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned
off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind...And
each time it plays you feel the clap of pain again...Forgiving turns off the
videotape of pained memory Forgiving sets you free."

"Forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle of blame--and pain--in a
relationship...It does not settle all questions of blame and justice and
fairness...But it does allow relationships to start over. In that way, said
Solzhenitsyn, we differ from all animals. It is not our capacity to think
that makes us different, but our capacity to repent, and to forgive."

"Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do
not permit life to proceed with new business. Not to forgive is to yield
oneself to another's control...to be locked into a sequence of act and
response, of outrage and revenge, tit for tat, escalating always. The
present is endlessly overwhelmed and devoured by the past. Forgiveness frees
the forgiver. It extracts the forgiver from someone else's nightmare."