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.
Interpretation
Forgiveness allows us to transform painful memories into hope for the future without erasing the past.
This quote emphasizes the idea that while forgiveness does not remove the pain or bitterness associated with past experiences, it offers a pathway to heal and reframe those memories. By learning to forgive, we can shift our perspective and allow our memories to become sources of strength and hope rather than continual sources of hurt.
In practice
In a speech about healing relationships, one could say, 'As Lewis B. Smedes reminds us, forgiving does not erase the bitter past, but instead transforms it into hope for our future.'
God is the original, master forgiver. Each time we grope our reluctant way through the minor miracle of forgiving, we are imitating his style. I am not at all sure that any of us would have had imagination enough to see the possibilities in this way to heal the wrongs of this life had he not done it first.
Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind...And each time it plays you feel the clap of pain again...Forgiving turns off the videotape of pained memory Forgiving sets you free.
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.
When you give up vengeance, make sure you are not giving up on justice. The line between the two is faint, unsteady, and fine...Vengeance is our own pleasure of seeing someone who hurt us getting it back and then some. Justice, on the other hand, is secure when someone pays a fair penalty for wronging another even if the injured person takes no pleasure in the transaction. Vengeance is personal satisfaction. Justice is moral accounting...Human forgiveness does not do away with human justice.
Forgiving does not usually happen at once. It is a process, sometimes a long one, especially when it comes to wounds gouged deep. And we must expect some lapses...some people seem to manage to finish off forgiving in one swoop of the heart. But when they do, you can bet they are forgiving flesh wounds. Deeper cuts take more time and can use a second coat.
When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life. You set a prisoner free, but you discover that the real prisoner was yourself.
If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Sometimes I say to people, 'Do you think you're easy to live with?' People who are single. And the ones who say, 'Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty easy to live with; it's just a question of finding the right person,' massive alarm bell rings in my mind.
You have to learn how to care about people without taking on all of their problems.
In true marriage there must be a union of minds as well as of hearts. Emotions must not wholly determine decisions, but the mind and the heart, strengthened by fasting and prayer and serious consideration, will give one a maximum chance of marital happiness.
I do not believe in things. I believe in relationships.
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