To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.
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.
It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.
You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.
When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.
The lies we tell ourselves are the most subtle of all lies.
Seeing reality for what it is is what we call discernment. The work of discernment is very hard.
The Holy Spirit, thank God, often enables people to forgive even though they are not sure how they did it.
The right to personal privacy is precious. Without it, we are all potential victims for a prying secret police.
The problem with revenge is that it never evens the score. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain. Both are stuck on the escalator as long as parity is demanded, and the escalator never stops.
Any lazy or biased fool can have opinions; making judgments is the hard work of responsible and compassionate people.
The God who has the whole world in his hands has grace for the whole world in his heart.
The blood of Christ covers all of our sins, but each of us must do personal business with God in order to experience his forgiveness.
Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk.
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 is not free to decide for herself, in private, what to do with her body.
Some people still make promises and keep those they make. When they do, they help make life around them more stably human.
Promise keeping is a powerful means of grace in a time when people hardly depend on each other to remember and live by their word.
What is a disloyal act? A person is disloyal if he treats you as a stranger when, in fact, he belongs to you as a friend or partner. Each of us is bound to some special others by the invisible fibers of loyalty.
At the cross, God was punishing Jesus for the sins of the world. God's justice required a penalty from sinners, and in his unspeakable love, he paid the penalty himself in the person of his crucified Son.
As I read the New Testament, I find only one path to salvation - the path of an informed faith in Jesus Christ.
