There are two kinds of sorry. There is the sorry imbued with regret. And a pure sorry. The kind that is merely asking for forgiveness, nothing more.
Forgiveness must be immediate, whether or not a person asks for it. Trust must be rebuilt over time. Trust requires a track record.
If I say, "Yes, I forgive, but I cannot forgive," as though the God, who twice a day washes all the sands on all the shores of all the world, could not wash such memories from my mind, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
God forgives somehow we have yet to learn the same.
It isn't easy, it doesn't count if it's easy, it's the hardest thing. Forgiveness. Which is maybe where love and justice finally meet.
Forgiving is not forgetting. It is remembering and letting go.
In the autumn I gathered all my sorrows and buried them in my garden. And when April returned and spring came to wed the earth, there grew in my garden beautiful flowers unlike all other flowers. And my neighbors came to behold them, and they all said to me, "When autumn comes again, at seeding time, will you not give us of the seeds of these flowers that we may have them in our gardens?"
We may not know how to forgive, and we may not want to forgive; but the very fact we say we are willing to forgive begins the healing practice.
Adhere To - Faith, Unity, Sacrifice. Avoid - Back-biting, Falsehood and Crookedness. Admire - Frankness, Honesty, and Large-heartedness. Control - Tongue, Temper, and Tossing of the mind. Cultivate - Cosmic Love, Forgiveness and Patience. Hate - Lust, Anger, and Pride.
How can we understand forgiveness if we haven't recognized the depth of our sin?
Forgiveness is setting the prisoner free, only to find out that the prisoner was me.
He who has not forgiven an enemy has never yet tasted one of the most sublime enjoyments of life.
For me it's not possible to forget, and I don't understand people who, when the love is ended, can bury the other person in hatred or oblivion. For me, a man I have loved becomes a kind of brother.
Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it. If we're frantic, life will be frantic. If we're peaceful, life will be peaceful. And so our goal in any situation becomes inner peace.
God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.
Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.
You may be sorry that you spoke, sorry you stayed or went, sorry you won or lost, sorry so much was spent. But as you go through life, you'll find - you're never sorry you were kind.
Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult healings we will undertake. And one of the most fruitful. (79)
Forgive yourself and forgive others around you.
Forgiveness means that I continually am willing to forgive the other person for not being God — for not fulfilling all my needs. I, too, must ask forgiveness for not being able to fulfill other people's needs. … The interesting thing is that when you can forgive people for not being God, then you can celebrate that they are a reflection of God.
