Once we make an apology, we don’t have to keep repeating it. If someone wants to keep on extricating an apology from us for the same incident, that is the person’s issue, and we don’t have to get hooked.
— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 273
When the deepest desire we feel within our hearts is for something other than God, a spirit of entitlement develops. We see ourselves as needing something we don’t have and we believe we should have. Justice is on our side. So we think. Prayer becomes demand when desire becomes our tyrant.
Soon we’re caught in the addictive cycle. Whatever brings satisfaction relieves pain for the moment, then creates deeper emptiness that, in turn, more rudely clamors for relief. We lose our power to choose. The will becomes a slave to whatever god makes us feel better. We die as persons while Satan chuckles.
— Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 86
It is important to be gentle with and accepting of yourself throughout your relationship. You are just as flawed, misguided, and hurtful as your lover, and you both need a good dose of TLC. While the idea of self-forgiveness might be a “duh” to many of you, the point still needs to be made. Self-forgiveness enables you to move on with kindness after grieving your flaws and the ways you have hurt your lover. When you forgive yourself, you look for your good qualities, appreciate the love you offer, and accept with humility the harm you cause. You also change your story to reflect your positive intention and your effort to do the best you can with what you have to work with.
Self-forgiveness is not that different from forgiving your partner. . . .
Nobody is perfect, and everybody will make many mistakes. Some of us make mistakes that cause harm, and others make mistakes that only cause a mess. Because you and your partner are human beings, you will make mistakes, fail occasionally, and sometimes even harm other people. Your need to be perfect is an unenforceable rule, one that can never be met. Needing to never hurt your lover is an unenforceable rule. Demanding that you always be successful in all aspects of your relationship is an unenforceable rule. When you accept that you are human, you are able to offer forgiveness to yourself and remember that you have the resources at your disposal to improve yourself and help others.
— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 209-210, 215
But a person with a shattered life . . . doesn’t first need Christ to forgive her or to forgive through her. Before anything else, she needs Christ to cradle her, to nurse her with the milk of divine love, to hold her in his arms like an inestimable gem, to sing her songs of gentle care and firm protection, and to restore her to herself as a beloved and treasured being.
And that’s what Christ does.
— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, p. 206
I would count on this:Â God is always working to make His children aware of a dream that remains alive beneath the rubble of every shattered dream, a new dream that when realized will release a new song, sung with tears, till God wipes them away and we sing with nothing but joy in our hearts.
— Dr. Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 82
Trying excessively to make a point with another may mean that we have not yet made that point with ourselves. Once we make that point with ourselves, once we understand, we will know what to do.
The issue is not about others understanding and taking us seriously. The issue is not about others believing we’re good and good enough. The issue is not about others seeing and believing how responsible or loving or competent we are. The issue is not about whether others realize how deeply we are feeling a particular feeling. We are the ones that need to see the light….
If I catch myself in the codependent trap of trying to emphasize something about myself to another, I will ask myself if I need to convince myself of that point.
— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 204
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
We can be assured of this: God, who knows all and sees all, will set all things straight in the end. Even better, he will dry every tear. In the meantime he mysteriously takes our sorrows and uses them to heal the world.
— Richard J. Foster, Prayer, p. 223
The good news is that as we connect to our positive intention, we begin to find forgiveness. Forgiveness is the compassion we experience as we remind ourselves that by driving a car — having a relationship — we run the risk of a breakdown. Forgiveness is the power we get as we assert that we have a deep well of resilience to draw upon. Forgiveness is the grace that helps us remember to look around while we’re on the side of the road and appreciate our beautiful surroundings and the people we love. To help forgiveness emerge, we can learn to see ourselves from the point of view of our positive intention, not primarily as a wounded or rejected lover.
— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 190
Although claiming my true identity as a child of God, I still live as though the God to whom I am returning demands an explanation. I still think about his love as conditional and about home as a place I am not yet fully sure of. While walking home, I keep entertaining doubts about whether I will be truly welcome when I get there. As I look at my spiritual journey, my long and fatiguing trip home, I see how full it is of guilt about the past and worries about the future. I realize my failures and know that I have lost the dignity of my sonship, but I am not yet able to fully believe that where my failings are great, “grace is always greater.” Still clinging to my sense of worthlessness, I project for myself a place far below that which belongs to the son. Belief in total, absolute forgiveness does not come readily. . . .
One of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God’s forgiveness. There is something in us humans that keeps us clinging to our sins and prevents us from letting God erase our past and offer us a completely new beginning. Sometimes it even seems as though I want to prove to God that my darkness is too great to overcome. While God wants to restore me to the full dignity of sonship, I keep insisting that I will settle for being a hired servant. But do I truly want to be restored to the full responsibility of the son? Do I truly want to be so totally forgiven that a completely new way of living becomes possible? Do I trust myself and such a radical reclamation? Do I want to break away from my deep-rooted rebellion against God and surrender myself so absolutely to God’s love that a new person can emerge? Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing. As long as I want to do even part of that myself, I end up with partial solutions, such as becoming a hired servant. As a hired servant, I can still keep my distance, still revolt, reject, strike, run away, or complain about my pay. As the beloved son, I have to claim my full dignity and begin preparing myself to become the father.
— Henri J. M. Nowen, The Return of the Prodigal Son:Â A Story of Homecoming, p. 52-53