I was asked to lead a session on ‘Forgiveness’ today as part of the Life Matters Course for young adults. One thing I have learned from my involvement with The Journey is that forgiveness is a health issue. Or, put another way, when we hold onto hurts, anger, resentment or when we push those strong feelings down without resolving them, that is when we are storing up health problems for our bodies. Brandon Bays story (in her book The Journey) is an amazing one of discovering the depths and power of forgiveness which then led to her becoming free of a tumour the size of a basketball without surgery or chemotherapy! Although I haven’t been diagnosed with anything as major as cancer, I have discovered the freedom and power that comes from forgiveness and have found I have twice the energy I used to have since uncovering some deep stuff from early childhood and being able to forgive.
Here are a few quotes on forgiveness that I like:
A monk was once asked: What do you do there in the monastery? He replied: We fall and get up, fall and get up, fall and get up again. - Tito Colliander
Where there is no sorrow there is no salvation - St Seraphim of Sarov
To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. - Cardinal Henry Newman
To repent is to open our eyes to the light. In this sense, repentance is not just a single act, an initial step, but a continuing state, and attitude of heart and will that needs to be ceaselessly renewed up to the end of life… To repent is to wake up. Repentance, change of mind, leads to watchfulness. The Greek term used here, nepsis, means literally sobriety and wakefulness – the opposite to a state of drugged or alcoholic stupor; and so in the context of the spiritual life it signifies attentivenes, vigilance, recollection. When the prodigal son repented, it is said that ‘he came to himself’ (Luke 15:17). The ‘neptic’ man is one who has come to himself, who does not daydream, drifting aimlessly under the influence of passing impulses, but who possesses a sense of direction and purpose.
– Father Kalistos Ware “The Orthodox Way”
He who cannot forgive others destroys the bridge over which he himself must pass. – George Herbert
Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.
– Joan Lunden, in “Healthy Living Magazine”
Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.
— Cherie Carter-Scott, “If Love Is a Game, These Are the Rules”
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. - Mahatma Gandhi (1869 – 1948)
You may have other quotes you would like to share.
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