Everything that God sends us is beautiful, even though we may not understand it - and we only need to give it some proper thought to see that what God gives is just sheer happiness; the suffering is what we add to it.
One great help here - and I make no claim that it is the only help or even a necessary condition for forgiveness - is sincere repentance on the part of the wrongdoer. When I am wronged by another, a great part of the injury - over and above any physical harm I may suffer - is the insulting or degrading message that has been given to me by the wrongdoer: the message that I am less worthy than he is, so unworthy that he may use me merely as a means or object in service to his desires and projects. Thus failing to resent(or hastily forgiving) the wrongdoer runs the risk that I am endorsing that very immoral message for which the wrongdoer stands. If the wrongdoer sincerely repents, however, he now joins me in repundiating the degrading and insulting message - allowing me to relate to him (his new self) as an equal without fear that a failure to resent him will be read as a failure to resent what he hs done.
Getting Even: Forgiveness and Its Limits
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One great help here - and I make no claim that it is the only help or even a necessary condition for forgiveness - is sincere repentance on the part of the wrongdoer. When I am wronged by another, a great part of the injury - over and above any physical harm I may suffer - is the insulting or degrading message that has been given to me by the wrongdoer: the message that I am less worthy than he is, so unworthy that he may use me merely as a means or object in service to his desires and projects. Thus failing to resent(or hastily forgiving) the wrongdoer runs the risk that I am endorsing that very immoral message for which the wrongdoer stands. If the wrongdoer sincerely repents, however, he now joins me in repundiating the degrading and insulting message - allowing me to relate to him (his new self) as an equal without fear that a failure to resent him will be read as a failure to resent what he hs done.
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_she had nothing to do but to forgive herself and be happier than ever_
I swore that I would not suffer from the world's grief and the world's stupidity and cruelty and injustice and I made my heart as hard in endurance as the nether millstone and my mind as a polished surface of steel. I no longer suffered, but enjoyment had passed away from me.
No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover. The life to themselves and their families stands between them and the recognition of their need; He makes that life less sweet to them.If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had.
God's Grace is greater than all our sins. Repentance is one of the Christian's highest privileges. A repentant Christian focuses on God's mercy and God's grace. Any moment in our lives when we bask in God's mercy and grace is our highest moment. Higher than when we feel smug in our decent performance and cannot think of anything we need to confess... That is potentially a glorious moment. For we could at that moment accept God's abundant Mercy and Grace and go forth with nothing to boast of except Christ Himself, or else we struggle with our shame, focusing on that as well as our track record. We fail because we have shifted our attention from Grace and Mercy. One who draws on God's Mercy and Grace is quick to repent, but also slow to sin.