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The following are individual quotes from various resources on the subject of forgiveness. Pray about each one and ask the Lord to teach you what He wants you to learn. They are meant to help you in the process of learning to forgive. We pray they will minister to you as you read and pray through them:

 

• Marriage becomes a series of surprises for most of us, and one of them is how frequently we need to forgive and be forgiven. (From the book, “The First Years of Forever” by Dr Ed Wheat)

 

• Forgiveness is a key element in healthy long-term marriages. Forgiveness is the oil that lubricates a love relationship, and it’s an oil we need daily. Forgiveness is not a one-time event; it’s an attitude of wanting to partner with your spouse in spite of his or her imperfections and irritations. (David and Claudia Arp)

 

• Forgiveness is one of the most painful decisions we can make. We know that somehow we’re supposed to forgive, but when we step right up to it, we feel as though we’re being asked to turn ourselves inside out, tear out our hearts, and give them into the hands of our enemy. (Linda W. Rooks, from the book, “Broken Heart on Hold” page 165)

 

• Do I have to forgive my spouse? The short answer, if you’re a Christian, is yes. Jesus Christ has been crystal clear on that subject: “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins?” (Mark 11:25). The apostle Paul echoes this idea: “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). …Both Jesus and Paul answered this question by emphasizing that the most important reason to forgive is that we’ve been forgiven.

If we’ve asked for God’s forgiveness through Jesus’ sacrifice, for our terribly long list of offenses against Him (and if we think we haven’t offended Him, we’re really out of touch with reality), He’s already forgiven us. Why would we do less for those— including our spouses — who have wronged us? Another good reason for forgiving a spouse is that it’s in your own best interest to do so. As in art, what isn’t positive space is negative space. What’s left if we decide not to take the positive step of forgiving? The negatives of depression, anger, self-pity, and bitterness will be fertilized. (Philip J. Swihart, one of the authors of the book, The First Five Years of Marriage)

 

•  Forgiveness is not a cruel demand that a sadistic God imposes on the hurting. It is the painful but healing door to freedom. It is surgery on the heart that extracts the poison of bitterness so we can move forward into a healthy life. Forgiveness is a choice we make intentionally, not because we just want to put the memory behind us, because we’ve been told we must, or because we think it will cause God to give us what we want. We choose to forgive because we recognized the tremendous mercy and power in God’s forgiveness of us. If God is able to forgive us our enormous cache of sin, our forgiveness of one who has hurt us is small in comparison.

 

•  Sometimes in trying to forgive we put an intense but unnecessary burden on ourselves. I thought I could completely forgive right away. But I discovered that forgiveness is not a one-time act. It’s a process. While it begins with the decision to forgive, it often takes time before the heart fully accepts what the will has set in motion. How long it takes may depend somewhat on the severity of the pain. Forgiveness takes time, and we must give ourselves the grace that our healing requires as we put forgiveness in motion. (Linda W. Rooks, from the book, “Broken Heart on Hold” page 165-166)

 

• Knowing how much we need forgiving, you would think we would quickly forgive those who hurt us or let us down. It doesn’t work that way. We humans minimize many of our own errors and maximize the errors of others. We like to keep our offender roasting awhile before we turn off the fire of our anger and indignation. Many of us would never think of refusing forgiveness, but we surely don’t mind making the offender uncomfortable first. (Mike and Diane Constantine, from the article, Forgiveness, posted on the web site www.intermin.org)

• The difference between holding on to a hurt or releasing it with forgiveness is like the difference between laying your head down at night on a pillow filled with thorns or a pillow filled with rose petals. (Loren Fincher – More Stories from the Heart)

 

• Every husband-and-wife combination needs the healing touch of forgiveness.Where else could there be more opportunity to annoy, insult, offend, or ruffle another person than in the intimacy of married life when we’re constantly under foot, get in each others way, and have to share all things in common (whether we like it or not)? That’s just ordinary living, without taking into account the astonishingly hurtful things husbands and wives do, which demands more forgiveness than any of us could work up on our own. (Dr Ed Wheat, The First Years of Forever)

 

• We live in a fallen world. We are going to make mistakes that not only affect ourselves, but the people around us —particularly the people that are most important to us, and there is no relationship more influential than the marital relationship. But why is forgiveness important? I will offer three major reasons why forgiveness is important for your relationship with your mate. (To read what Michael Smalley writes on “Learning to Forgive” please CLICK HERE.)

 

• I have learned that the best way to live is to decide in advance to be a person who forgives.It takes the pressure off because you don’t have to try to make that decision every time something bad happens and you’re reeling from disappointment, hurt, or your own anger.

 

Once I was finally convinced that not forgiving destroys you and forgiveness sets you free, I decided to be a forgiving person all the time. Once I made that decision, of course I was put to the test. The next time my husband became angry, instead of reacting to him in my normal negative way, I caught myself and remembered that made the decision to forgive him even for the future times when he gets that way. I already knew that I had not done anything deserving of this anger to my knowledge, so instead of withdrawing in hurt the way I usually would have, I pressed him for why he was angry and upset. As it turned out, it was something that had happened at work. When he told me about it, I could totally understand why he felt the way he did. I would have been upset too. What I did not understand was why he felt it was right to take it out on me. He later recognized it was wrong and apologized.

 

…After I was truly freed from the powerful effects of my husband’s anger by deciding in advance of it ever happening again that I was going to forgive him, I felt sad for Michael when he became angry. I knew he was cutting off what God wanted to bring his life and that he would be the loser because of it. I felt sorry for the little boy who was made to feel like a failure for something he didn’t understand and couldn’t help. I regret that I wasn’t healed, whole, and mature enough sooner so I would not have taken his anger so personally. Even thought it was directed at me, it had a history back before I even knew him. Only after God had worked complete forgiveness in my heart was I able to see all of that. (Stormie Omartian, “Praying Through the Deeper Issues of Marriage, p. 72-73)

 

• Why forgive? The answer… To move toward freedom from hatred and bitterness that can keep us from living life with joy and enthusiasm. To know more fully what it means to share in Christ’s suffering, to unite our spirit with His. To give God more opportunity to work in the world — in the victim’s life, in the offender’s life, and in lives of everyone they touch. And finally, we forgive because these light and momentary troubles are minimal compared to the glory we shall someday share with Jesus Christ our Lord. (Myrla Seibold, from an essay titled, When the Wounding Runs Deep, from the book, “Care for the Soul”)

 

• There is power in forgiveness. Hate, anger and resentment are destructive, eating away at the heart and soul of the person who carries them. They are absolutely incompatible with your own peace, joy and relaxation. Ugly emotions change who you are and contaminate every relationship you have. They can also take a physical toll on your body, including sleep disturbance, headaches, back spasms, and even heart attacks. Forgiveness sets you free from the bonds of hatred, anger and resentment. The only way to rise above the negatives of a relationship in which you were hurt is to take the moral high ground, and forgive the person who hurt you.

 

•  Forgiveness is not about another person who has transgressed against you; it is about you. Forgiveness is about doing whatever it takes to preserve the power to create your own emotional state. It is a gift to yourself and it frees you. You don’t have to have the other person’s cooperation, and they do not have to be sorry or admit the error of their ways. Do it for yourself. Strategy: Open your eyes to what anger and resentment are doing to you. Take your power back from those who have hurt you. (Dr Phil McGraw –from Dr Phil’s Ten Life Laws, www.drphil.com)

 

• You can’t heal until you forgive. Jesus used the analogy of setting someone free from a prison. When we get wounded by our spouse, what we do is we throw them in a little prison inside of our hearts, and we say, “You owe me, you hurt me, and I’m not going to set you free.” But Scripture says it only poisons us. It’s only messing with our lives, and it messes with us spiritually with our relationship with God. Forgiveness is not saying that what they did was okay or they’re going to get away with it. It’s saying that I’m releasing my anger, I’m releasing this person out of a prison in my heart. I’m turning them over to the Lord, I’m turning my anger over to the Lord. God is judge, he’s going to deal with them, and I’m going to show them mercy just like Christ showed me on the cross. (Stephen Kendrick, co-writer and producer of movie, “Fireproof” in a radio interview with Dennis Rainey, aired on Family Life Today, 9/26/08.)

 

• When you choose to forgive, you untie the knots put into a relationship by letting go of the offense. That means that when you refuse to resolve relationship issues, knots and tangles of resentment and bitterness thicken in your subconscious mind. They ensnare you and tie you up. When you’re ensnared, you can’t enjoy the freedom and joy God desires to give you. The moment you forgive someone, God unties your own tangles. He frees your heart and releases his grace and power to love others. (From “Question of the Week”, Smalleyonline.com newsletter 4/14/08)

 

• We should forgive whether or not our offender asks our forgiveness. We’re often asked, “If someone has offended me, shouldn’t I wait until he asks my forgiveness before I forgive him?” The testimony of Jesus will answer this question. While on the cross He prayed, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:24). Obviously, at this point, the masses were not asking for forgiveness, but Jesus forgave them nevertheless. Forgiveness is not based on whether our offender deserves our forgiveness or whether or not he asks for it. We are to forgive because we have been forgiven; it’s a matter of stewardship. (David Ferguson, Don McMinn, Emotional Fitness)

 

• When your husband asks for your forgiveness, remember how freeing it feels to be forgiven without hesitation or reservations. Now do it! …Remember, we are our children’s greatest teachers. There is enormous truth to the adage that we reap what we sow. Show them by your example how to forgive and forget. (Judy Carden, from book, What Husbands Need)

 

• If you feel you can’t forgive, ask God to penetrate your unforgiveness with His love. When we have to do the impossible, God says that the way it happens is “not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6). This means that certain things will not be accomplished by human strength, but only by the power of God. The Holy Spirit will enable us to forgive even the unforgivable. (Stormie Omartian, “Praying Through the Deeper Issues of Marriage, p. 75)