Forgiveness Lady FORGIVENESS is the Only Way to Peace

And if your friend does evil to you, say to him, ”I forgive you for what you did to me, but how can I forgive you for what you did to yourself?”
Friedrich Nietzsche

Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind…And each time it plays you feel the clap of pain again…Forgiving turns off the videotape of pained memory. Forgiving sets you free.
Lewis B Smedes

In a way, forgiving is only for the brave. It is for those people who are willing to confront their pain, accept themselves as permanently changed, and make difficult choices. Countless individuals are satisfied to go on resenting and hating people who wrong them. They stew in their own inner poisons and even contaminate those around them. Forgivers, on the other hand, are not content to be stuck in a quagmire. They reject the possibility that the rest of their lives will be determined by the unjust and injurious acts of another person.
Gordon Dalbey

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.
Beverly Flanigan – Forgiving The Unforgivable: Overcoming the Legacy of Intimate Wounds

All the years you have waited for them to “make it up to you” and all the energy you expended trying to make them change (or make them pay) kept the old wounds from healing and gave pain from the past free rein to shape and even damage your life. And still they may not have changed. Nothing you have done has made them change. Indeed, they may never change. Inner peace is found by changing yourself, not the people who hurt you. And you change yourself for yourself, for the joy, serenity, peace of mind, understanding, compassion, laughter, and bright future that you get.”
Lewis B. Smedes – The Art of Forgiving: When You Need To Forgive And Don’t Know How

You can forgive someone almost anything. But you cannot tolerate everything…We don’t have to tolerate what people do just because we forgive them for doing it. Forgiving heals us personally. To tolerate everything only hurts us all in the long run.
Lewis B. Smedes