To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.

...Forgiving is not having to understand. Understanding may come later, in fragments, an insight here and a glimpse there, after forgiving.

The first and often only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness... When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.

My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were wed - and each of the five has been me.

Forgiveness is God's invention for coming to terms with a world in which people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And He invites us all to forgive each other.

Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule.

We feel properly embarrassed when we are caught doing something that makes us look inept, knuckleheaded, or inappropriate. Maybe the difference is this: we feel embarrassed because we look bad, and we feel shame because we think we are bad. When we are embarrassed, we feel socially foolish. When we are shamed, we feel morally unworthy.