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

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.

You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.

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.

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.

True, the apostles did not expressly say that people will be saved only if they repent, believe, and confess. But most evangelicals assume - with good reason - that this is what the apostles implied.

God is not a doormat, nor should anyone else be a doormat.

Retributive justice did not arise from any Christian principle; almost every pre-Christian society dealt with wrongdoers by causing them pain.

Common sense suggests that if no one ever judged other people, there would be no real human community.

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