The Longer We Hate, The Harder It

Not Even God Can Make Something Fair Out Of What Is Intrinsically Unfair. Only One Thing Can Be Done. Something Must Break Through The Crust Of Unfairness And Create A Chance For A New Fairness. Only Forgiveness Can Make The Breakthrough.

When Forgiveness Is Necessary, Don't Wait Too Long. We Must Begin To Forgive, Because Without Forgiving, We Choke Off Our Own Joy; We Kill Our Own Soul. People Carrying Hate And Resentment Can Invest Themselves So Deeply In That Resentment That They Gradually Define Themselves In Terms Of It.

Once We Have Forgiven, However, We Get A New Freedom To Forget. This Time Forgetting Is A Sign Of Health; It Is Not A Trick To Avoid Spiritual Surgery. We Can Forget Because We Have Been Healed. But Even If It Is Easier To Forget After We Forgive, We Should Not Make Forgetting A Test Of Our Forgiving. The Test Of Forgiving Lies With Healing The Lingering Pain Of The Past, Not With Forgetting The Past Has Ever Happened.

Forgiving Is Tough. Excusing Is Easy. What A Mistake It Is To Confuse Forgiving With Being Mushy, Soft, Gutless, And Oh, So Understanding. Before We Forgive, We Stiffen Our Spine And We Hold A Person Accountable. And Only Then, In Tough-minded Judgment, Can We Do The Outrageously Impossible Thing: We Can Forgive.

We Feel Properly Embarrassed When We Are Caught Doing Something That Makes Us Look Inept, Knuckleheaded, Or Inappropriate. Maybe The Difference Is This: We Feel Embarrassed Because We Look Bad, And We Feel Shame Because We Think We Are Bad. When We Are Embarrassed, We Feel Socially Foolish. When We Are Shamed, We Feel Morally Unworthy.