The Opposite of Resentment

Forgiveness, Gratitude, Trust 0

Along with trust there must be gratitude — the opposite of resentment.  Resentment and gratitude cannot coexist, since resentment blocks the perception and experience of life as a gift.  My resentment tells me that I don’t receive what I deserve.  It always manifests itself in envy.

Gratitude, however, goes beyond the “mine” and “thine” and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift.  In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline.  The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice.  I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment.  It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint.  I can choose to be grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness.  I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly.  I can choose to listen to the voices that forgive and to look at the faces that smile, even while I still hear words of revenge and see grimaces of hatred.

— Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, p. 85

Love the Sinner

Core Value, Forgiveness, Love 0

Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man’s actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.

For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction:  how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man?  But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life — namely myself.  However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself.  There had never been the slightest difficulty about it.  In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man.  Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.  Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery.  We ought to hate them.  Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid.  But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves:  being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again.

— C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, quoted in A Year with C. S. Lewis, edited by Patricia S. Klein, p. 226

Positive Intention

Core Value, Forgiveness, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

Positive intention is shorthand for talking about why you want your relationship to succeed, or what you are going to do to make it work, or how you can grow from a challenging experience.  It is the opposite of complaining.  Positive intention helps you see the big picture of a successful relationship and stops you from focusing on the little picture of disappointment or grievance. . . .  I want you to share stories with yourself, with your loved one, and with your friends and family that reflect a strong and positive commitment to your marriage.  These stories do not have to be long or detailed, but they should anchor your relationship in the idea of goodness and the continued possibility of success.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 204

We Don’t Get What We Deserve.

Forgiveness, Relationships, Uncategorized 0

For a Christian, however, a bottom-line principle can never be that we should get what we deserve.  Our very existence is God’s gift.  Our redemption from the snares of sin is God’s gift.  Both are undeserved, and neither could have been deserved.  From start to finish, we are always given free of charge and given more than our due.  It is therefore only fitting that we give others more than their due — give them gifts that satisfy their needs or delight their senses and imagination, and give them the gift of forgiveness that frees them from guilt and the obligation to pay for their misdeeds.

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, p. 203-204

Empowering Yourself

Forgiveness, Letting Go, Marriage, Relationships 0

Recognize that what your partner does is a problem, but it’s not the problem.  The problem is how you react to what your partner does.  If you make your partner the problem, all you can do is hope that he changes or try to get him to change.  That’s a disempowered position.  As you increase your ability to respond to the negative things your partner does, you are going to empower yourself and increase your own self-esteem.  This single concept is the driving principle behind almost all books on improving relationships.

— Ellyn Bader, PhD, and Peter T. Pearson, PhD, Tell Me No Lies, p. 141

Speaking to Others with Kindness

Compassion, Forgiveness, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

Whenever possible, you want to speak of your lover and your relationship with kindness.  That is the overarching message of this book.  Look for any way you can be kind to the person you share your life with.  Don’t be tempted to say nasty things when your lover screws up or to put your lover down when he or she fails….  Setting boundaries and expressing ourselves is good, but talking about our relationship negatively and highlighting our lover’s failings is bad….

Remember that what comes out of your mouth says more about your character than it does about your partner’s….  We think that we are describing our lover’s weaknesses, but our words and actions are actually showing our own….

The truth is that we can choose how we talk to and about our partner.  Sadly, many people choose to discuss their lover negatively….  A lot of relationships struggle with the cost of holding a grudge and the sense of blame it causes.  Getting rid of the blame quickly and regularly is hugely important if you want your relationship to thrive and move forward.

Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 201-203

Set Yourself Free

Forgiveness, Healing, Letting Go 0

Nothing clarifies boundaries more than forgiveness.  To forgive someone means to let him off the hook, or to cancel a debt he owes you.  When you refuse to forgive someone, you still want something from that person, and even if it is revenge that you want, it keeps you tied to him forever.

— Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries, p. 134

Recommitting

Forgiveness, Letting Go, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

A good relationship is worth the effort of letting go of an annoying trait in your partner and being as kind as possible to this person you are connected to.  Those two ideas are central to your marriage vows.  A marriage is a choice to recommit to your partner every day.  Every spouse, whether recovering from a brutal betrayal or simply dealing with a sloppy partner, decides every day wehter to get up and dance with that partner again.  Every marriage goes through periods when each partner is not sure about continuing it. . . .  Forgiveness is based upon a continual recommitment to your relationship.  Forgiveness comes after grieving your losses, and it allows you to move forward in your relationship with happiness and a positive attitude.  This is true whether the losses were big (your spouse is a drug addict) or little (your lazy partner never does the grocery run) or somewhere in between — as when you accept the fact that you married a slob, you have grieved the neat person you should have married, and you have recommitted to the lovable human being you chose to be with.

Recommitting is an ongoing process; you have to recommit every time your lover says the same dumb thing again and you react with your same exasperated sigh.  You have to recommit when your lover is late yet again, or leaves a cheap tip for the third time in a week.  If your partner does something annoying but ultimately insignificant, acknowledge your dismay or loss for an instant and then connect right back again.  Try saying something to help put the annoyance in perspective and get back in the game.  You could remind yourself that “she’s worth it,” or “it was no big deal.”  Most of the time you don’t even need to let your lover know he or she has done anything wrong.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 199-200

Forgiveness as a Way of Life

Forgiveness 0

Forgiveness doesn’t stand alone, as a punctual act or even as an isolated practice.  That would be too passive an understanding of what forgiveness is all about.  Rather, it is embedded in a way of life that is committed to overcoming evil by doing good.

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, p. 189-190

Forgiveness and Repentance

Forgiveness 1

Repentance is important, even indispensable, and it is indispensable because forgiveness is an event between people, not just an individual’s change of feelings, attitudes, or actions.  Instead of being a condition of forgiveness, however, repentance is its necessary consequence.

If they imitate the forgiving God, forgivers will keep forgiving, whether the offenders repent or not.  Forgivers’ forgiving is not conditioned by repentance.  The offenders’ being forgiven, however, is conditioned by repentance — just as being given a box of chocolate is conditioned by receiving that box of chocolate.  Without repentance, the forgivers will keep forgiving but the offenders will remain unforgiven, in that they are untouched by that forgiveness.

Why?  Because they refuse to be forgiven. . . .  Unrepentant offenders implicitly say:  It’s wrong for you to forgive me; I’ve done you no wrong.  Or more brazenly, they say:  I don’t care if you forgive or not, because I don’t care whether I’ve wronged you or not.  Mostly, however, they say:  I am too ashamed of the wrongdoing I’ve committed to repent, too afraid of the consequences that may befall me.  In all three cases, forgiveness is rejected. . . .

That it is difficult to repent genuinely will not come as a surprise to those who have pondered the gravity and power of human sin.  One of sin’s most notable features is that it unfailingly refuses to acknowledge itself as sin.  We usually not only refuse to admit the wrongdoing and to accept guilt, but seem neither to detest the sin committed nor feel very sorry about it.  Instead, we hide our sin behind multiple walls of denial, cover-up, mitigating explanations, and claims to comparative innocence.

The accusations of others reinforce our propensity to hide sin.  We usually do all we can to justify ourselves, and that reaction is understandable.  We fear the consequences of sin.  We may lose a good reputation or be punished.  We cannot bear to face ourselves as wrongdoers.  We fear that the integrity of our very selves might crumble under the weight of our offense.  That’s why we are often able to repent only when we are assured that our guilt will be lifted and charges will not be pressed against us.  In other words, we are able to genuinely repent only when forgiveness has first been extended to us. . . .

Forgiveness does not cause repentance, but it does help make repentance possible.

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, p. 183-186