No Unforgivable People

Forgiveness, God 0

There are no unforgivable people.

Should we forgive even those who refuse to repent?  Consider once again God’s forgiveness, which serves as a model for ours.  There are people who think that in relation to God, repentance comes before forgiveness.  But that can’t be right.  God doesn’t angrily refuse forgiveness until we show ourselves worthy of it by repentance.  Instead, God loves us and forgives us before we repent.  Indeed, before we even sinned, Jesus Christ died for our sins.  God’s forgiveness is not reactive — dependent on our repentance.  It’s original, preceded and conditioned by absolutely nothing on our part.  We can do nothing to become worthy of it for the same reason we can do nothing to earn any of God’s gifts.  Before we do anything, before we even exist, God’s giving and God’s forgiving are already there, free of charge.  God doesn’t give and forgive conditionally.  God’s giving and forgiving are as unconditional as the sun’s rays and as indiscriminate as raindrops.  One died for all.  Absolutely no one is excluded.

Why should we forgive unconditionally and indiscriminately?  We don’t do it simply because a law demands we do so.  We forgive because God has already forgiven.  For us to hold any offender captive to sin by refusing to forgive is to reject the reality of God’s forgiving grace.  Because Christ died for all, we are called to forgive everyone who offends us, without distinctions and without conditions.  That hard work of indiscriminate forgiveness is what those who’ve been made in the likeness of the forgiving God should do.  And . . . that hard work of forgiveness is what those who’ve “put on Christ” are able to do.

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, p. 179-180

Wishes

Forgiveness, Marriage 0

When we forget that all we can really do is hope or wish for the results we want, we make things harder for ourselves.  When we forget that our ability to make our wishes come true is limited, we create grievances…. 

Try to remember one thing:  You risk disappointment every time you want something from your partner.  So much of forgiveness training involves accepting this simple fact of life.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 180-182

No Unforgiveable Sins

Forgiveness, God 0

The scandalousness of God’s indiscriminate forgiveness hits us even harder when we are called on to imitate it.  When we need to forgive, most of us, perhaps unconsciously, feel entitled to draw a circle around the scope of forgiveness.  We should forgive some, maybe even most, wrongdoings, but certainly not all.

Maybe we think unintentional offenses are forgivable, and deliberate ones are not.  But how would we draw the line?  How intentional would the offense need to be?  If the offense were truly unintentional, there would be something to be sorry about but nothing to forgive; it was just an accident.  Or maybe we think small offenses are forgivable, and horrendous ones are not.  But again, where would we draw the line?  An offense is an offense and has as much right to be forgiven as any other, which is no right at all.  No line separates offenses that should be forgiven from those that should not.  There are no unforgivable sins.

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, p. 178-179

Grieving

Forgiveness, Healing, Marriage 0

There will come a time in your relationship when your lover hurts you and you have to grieve the wound.  Perhaps your spouse has an affair, or you may simply be hurt by a fundamental difference in beliefs or habits.  Experiencing such pain does not mean there is anything wrong with you or the relationship. . .  A period of pain and anger will follow as you deal with the loss.  This period is commonly called “grieving,” and it’s an important part of the process of forgiveness.

It is normal to experience emotional distress when our world is shaken.  It is also human nature to grieve losses and to suffer when we are mistreated. . . .

Every time you disagree with or are hurt by your lover, you must acknowledge the pain you are dealing with.  Most of the time the pain will last only for a moment, and then you can remember why you love your partner, come up with a benign explanation, and get over it.  In those situations, the grief response will be very quick.  Your gut will suddenly feel tight, or there will be a swear word on your lips. . . .

Not all difficulties, hoever, are ones that we can move through without an active and extended time of grieving.  The period of grief begins when we fully embrace the reality that there is a painful experience in our relationship that we do not want and we cannot change.  We accept our inability to make a change, and this acceptance allows us to then feel the sadness, anger, and fear that come with loss.

An ability to grieve appropriately is a necessary part of a successful marriage, but many couples do not realize this.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 173-174

What We Can Change

Forgiveness, Marriage 0

We generally cannot change the actions and thoughts of other people or what happened in our own past.  What we can change is ourselves.  Forgiveness is one way to change ourselves and in that way change our relationships with our lovers.  As we change, we go from anger and self-pity to understanding and goodwill.  Becoming a more forgiving person helps us to change our focus from our wounds to the present and future possibilities for happiness in our marriage.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 169

Give More Love

Forgiveness, Love, Parenting 0

If there’s bad behaviour, the quickest way of stopping it is to give more love.  That always works, you know.  People say that we must punish when there is wrongdoing, but if you punish you’re only punishing yourself.  And what’s the point of that?

— Mma Potokwane in The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith

Forgive

Forgiveness, Relationships 0

Forgive.  This is the critical antidote to break the toxic cycle of rejection, resentment, and revenge.  People who feel hurt end up hurting others.  Somewhere along the line, someone has to stand up and say “the hurting stops with me.”  Forgiveness is the essential first step.

— Tim Murphy, PhD, and Loriann Hoff Oberlin, Overcoming Passive-Aggression:  How to Stop Hidden Anger from Spoiling your Relationships, Career and Happiness, p. 101

Friendship in Marriage

Forgiveness, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

Another important reason to deepen your friendship with your lover is that you are more likely to be kind and loving toward someone you consider a friend.  Friendship is an invitation to be kind and generous to both ourselves and our partners.  When your lover is your friend, you understand that he or she was not put on earth just to make you happy.  Your lover has as much right as you do to have personal habits and quirks.  When we are truly friends with our partners, we show them goodwill and do not just expect to have goodwill shown to us.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 154

Separate People

Forgiveness, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

It is incredibly important, and critical to any thriving marriage, that spouses see each other as separate persons with unique goals and desires.  This is not easy to do.  In the first thrall of love, people tend to look for and find their similarities with each other and to ignore obvious differences.  It’s normal to see the ways a new partner thinks like us and to focus on the things that bind us together…. 

After a while a new couple realizes that for all their similarities they are still different in significant ways.  For many couples, this is a problematic stage, and it requires a good deal of forgiveness.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 151-152