Forgiveness

The need for forgiveness is universal. Forgiveness is not someone else’s sanction. You do not need anyone’s permission to exist. Forgiveness is just tolerance for error. It has nothing to do with altering someone else’s state of mind, that’s well outside of anyone’s realm of influence. When someone comes to you seeking forgiveness, they are actually just seeking consolation, affirmation that you and they are at peace. They cannot ask you for what they will not give themselves.

Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is seeing any event as it is, just an event, one of many possible events that can happen at any given time, and realizing that as anything arises it can just as certainly fall away. The only thing that persists is your own attitude.

“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.” Catherine Ponder

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” Lewis B. Smedes

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Mahatma Gandhi (Indian Philosopher, internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest, 1869-1948)