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" We are anxious in the face of our unchangeable past; we long to recreate segments of our private histories, but we are stuck with them. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Anxious
Long
Our
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" To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. "
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Set
Forgive
Forgiveness
" You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Forgiveness
Hurt
Wish
" No doubt, corporate CEOs who lie to their shareholders and politicians who lie to their public know and believe intellectually that lying is immoral. Why then do they lie? They lie to others because they first lie to themselves. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Believe
Doubt
Politicians
" Some people have loved ones they will not forsake, even though they are a pain in the neck. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Will
Loved
Pain
" Any lazy or biased fool can have opinions; making judgments is the hard work of responsible and compassionate people. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Work
Hard Work
Fool
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Horror
Forgive
Face
" When we have been badly injured and clearly wronged, we make an instant caricature of the person who did it to us. We define him totally by the one wrong he did. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Wrong
Us
Him
" The right to personal privacy is precious. Without it, we are all potential victims for a prying secret police. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Privacy
Potential
Police
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Body
Nothing
Free
" God is not a doormat, nor should anyone else be a doormat. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Nor
Should
God
" The Holy Spirit, thank God, often enables people to forgive even though they are not sure how they did it. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Thank God
Spirit
People
" Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Forgiving
Love
Biggest
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Partner
You
Loyalty
" The lies we tell ourselves are the most subtle of all lies. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Ourselves
Most
Subtle
" I believe that we should, on biblical grounds, tell all parents of mentally disabled children that God loves their children, regrets terribly that they are disabled, and will, when they die, carry them gently into a heavenly life where every person is forever whole. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Children
Parents
Life
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
People
Live
Grace
" Modern Americans suffer from a fear of judging. Passing judgment on the behavior of fellow human beings is considered an act of medieval, undemocratic intolerance. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Judging
Behavior
Judgment
" Nobody sees reality whole; we all need others to show us the parts of it that they see better than we do. Nobody sees reality with total accuracy; we all need others to correct our own vision. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Need
Better
Vision
" Our history is an inevitable component of our being. One thing only can release us from the grip of our history. That one thing is forgiveness. "
Lewis B. Smedes
History
Inevitable
Us
" Our society is pluralistic. We who accept the privilege of membership in that society agree to respect the people's right to live by their own religious precepts. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Accept
Society
Respect
" No one really forgives unless he has been hurt. "
Lewis B. Smedes
He
Forgives
Been
" Our sense of fairness tells us that people should pay for the wrong they do. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Us
Wrong
Sense
" 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 wife with five rambunctious little kids to take care of. I was the youngest. Only a couple of months old when he died. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Take Care
Care
Father
" As I read the New Testament, I find only one path to salvation - the path of an informed faith in Jesus Christ. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Faith
Find
Jesus Christ
" Seeing reality for what it is is what we call discernment. The work of discernment is very hard. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Seeing
Reality
Hard
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Pain
Problem
Revenge
" The God who has the whole world in his hands has grace for the whole world in his heart. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Heart
Hands
Grace
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Son
Person
God
" It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Relationship
People
Forgive
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Moving On
Change
Future