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
When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the… — 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
Their pain [the injurer's pain at having injured you] and your pain create the point and counterpoint for the rhythm of reconciliation.… — 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
The first and often only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness... When we genuinely forgive,… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share Image
We attach our feelings to the moment when we were hurt, endowing it with immortality. And we let it assault us every… — 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
...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
The God who has the whole world in his hands has grace for the whole world in his heart. — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share
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
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
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
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
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
Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share
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
Our sense of fairness tells us that people should pay for the wrong they do. — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share
Gratitude is the best feeling I would ever have, the ultimate joy of living. — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share
My father was only thirty-one when he died of a heart attack, much too young for a father to die and leave his young… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share
The only way to heal the pain which will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiveness heals the memory's… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share
If you cannot free people from their wrongs and see them as the needy people they are, you enslave yourself to your own painful… — Lewis B. Smedes Copy Share
![“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.” quote by Lewis B. Smedes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/125/lewis-b-smedes-4850_beats_their-pain-the-injurer-s-pain-at-having_901587.png)
