forgiveness

My past life is abundantly full of God__ mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified.

I'm Sorry,' he says. It's simple and direct, with none of the nonsense about God calling home an angel too young and who are we to question his mysterious ways.

Love always precedes repentance. Divine love is a catalyst for our turning, our healing. Where fear & threat may gain our compliance, love captures our heart. It changes the heavy burden of the "have-to's" of imposed obedience to the "get-to's", a joyful response to the genuine love of God. It is in the security of this love we find Sabbath (rest).

The old adage of forgive and forget became a trudge through quicksand on a beach as high tide crashed onto the shore.

Love is just like the flower; it has hidden depths that we rarely ever explore. Beneath the surface lies a network of roots. You can admire the flower for what it is, or you can dig deeper. The more you dig, the more you will find. The real reasons we love a person sometimes exist in the darkest and deepest part of us, the part that knows no logic_or rationale.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.' Not only do the followers of Jesus renounce their rights, they renounce their own righteousness too. They get no praise for their achievements or sacrifices. They cannot have righteousness except by hungering and thirsting for it (this applies equally to their own righteousness and to the righteousness of God on Earth), always they look forward to the future righteousness of God, but they cannot establish it for themselves. Those who follow Jesus grow hungry and thirsty on the way.

Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

I didn't have a catharsis for my childhood pain, most of us don't, and until I learned how to forgive those people and let it go, I was unhappy.

Oh, you've outdone me twice now, you queen of forgiveness. The ring's a promise of peace and I'm greedy with hope. It's a song that we sing in a tongue that we share. And though you say it's a gift from a king to a king, I say it's a sign from a queen to a queen.

Forgiveness wasn__ ever easy, but a feat much more manageable when you weren__ the subject of its grace. Maybe I__ always be a broken recipient of grace. And in that musing, I found rest.

True repentance isn't just saying, "I'm sorry". It's. saying "I'm sorry, I'll never, ever do that again because my relationship with you means more to me than anything".

Everyone believes in sin, the people who charge their peers with political incorrectness and the people who regard political correctness as the bogey of a little mind. What everyone does not believe in, as nearly as I can tell, is forgiveness.

God has left sin in the world in order that there may be forgiveness: not only the secret forgiveness by which He Himself cleanses our souls, but the manifest forgiveness by which we have mercy on one another and so give expression to the fact that He is living, by His mercy, in our own hearts.

Grigsby had looked at him askance. __hy is it,_ he said, __hat I have the distinct impression you__e not surprised by this news?_ __urprised by the fact that the reverend is first and foremost a human being? Surprised by the fact that every human being, reverend or ribald, can be undone by capricious circumstances? Or should I be surprised by the fact that a man who teaches love and forgiveness can love and forgive? Tell me, Marmy, exactly what it is I should be surprised at?

The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer. In seeking the Bird's death to free himself, Louie had chained himself, once again, to his tyrant. During the war, the Bird had been unwilling to let go of Louie; after the war, Louie was unable to let go of the Bird.

Forgiveness is a practiced and fervrent process".~R. Alan Woods [2012]

Forgiveness. The frail beauty of the world takes root in me as I make my way back through the woods, past the caves and the ravine, where the earth has accepted the flesh of the deer, leaving nothing but a bone or two, peeking above Kartik's makeshift grave, to prove that any of this ever happened. Soon, they'll be gone too.But forgiveness...I'll hold on to that fragile slice of hope and keep it close remembering that in each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret. cruelty and sacrifice. We're each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We've got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there's an awful lot of gray to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.

Granny was right,' I said. 'When you forgive someone it does make you stronger. It makes your heart bigger than your hate.