With a little time, and a little more insight, we begin to see both ourselves and our enemies in humbler profiles. We… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Gandhi was right: if we all live by 'an eye for an eye' the whole world will be blind. The only way… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Forgive a wife-slammer if you can. But you don't have to live with him. Forgive a husband who is abusing your children… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
The problem with revenge is that it never gets what it wants; it never evens the score. Fairness never comes. The chain… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Forgiveness is the key that can unshackle us from a past that will not rest in the grave of things over and… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Once we have forgiven, however, we get a new freedom to forget. This time forgetting is a sign of health; it is… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Forgiving is tough. Excusing is easy. What a mistake it is to confuse forgiving with being mushy, soft, gutless, and oh, so… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
God invented forgiving as a remedy for a past that not even he could change and not even he could forget. His… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Nothing enables us to forgive like knowing in our hearts that we have been forgiven. — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Our history is an inevitable component of our being. One thing only can release us from the grip of our history. That… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
When you give up vengeance, make sure you are not giving up on justice. The line between the two is faint, unsteady,… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Can you stop your memory on a dime, put it in reverse, and spin it in another direction the way you can… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
I am certain that people never forgive because they believe they have an obligation to do it or because someone told them… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Don't do it quickly, but don't wait too long... If we wait too long to forgive, our rage settles in and claims… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
You can forgive someone almost anything. But you cannot tolerate everything...We don't have to tolerate what people do just because we forgive… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Not even God can make something fair out of what is intrinsically unfair. Only one thing can be done. Something must break… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
The blood of Christ covers all of our sins, but each of us must do personal business with God in order to… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
I worry about fast forgivers. They tend to forgive quickly in order to avoid their pain. Or they forgive fast in order… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Nothing is more private than a woman's body; it is her physical, emotional, and moral citadel. She cannot be free at all if she… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
...Forgiving is not having to understand. Understanding may come later, in fragments, an insight here and a glimpse there, after forgiving. — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
The God who has the whole world in his hands has grace for the whole world in his heart. — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Nobody sees reality whole; we all need others to show us the parts of it that they see better than we do. Nobody sees… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
I have discovered that most people who tell me that they cannot forgive a person who wronged them are handicapped by a mistaken understanding… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Spoken forgiveness, no matter how heartfelt, works best when we do not demand the response we want. I mean that when we tell people… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
We feel properly embarrassed when we are caught doing something that makes us look inept, knuckleheaded, or inappropriate. Maybe the difference is this: we… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
When I feel the joy of receiving a gift my heart nudges me to join creation's ballet, the airy dance of giving and receiving,… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Our sense of fairness tells us that people should pay for the wrong they do. — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
Gratitude is the best feeling I would ever have, the ultimate joy of living. — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
