The Secret Of Grace Is That It

...forgiving Is Not Having To Understand. Understanding May Come Later, In Fragments, An Insight Here And A Glimpse There, After Forgiving.

Forgiving Does Not Erase The Bitter Past. A Healed Memory Is Not A Deleted Memory.

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.

The Difference Between Guilt And Shame Is Very Clear--in Theory. We Feel Guilty For What We Do. We Feel Shame For What We Are. A Person Feels Guilt Because He Did Something Wrong. A Person Feels Shame Because He Is Something Wrong. We May Feel Guilty Because We Lied To Our Mother. We May Feel Shame Because We Are Not The Person Our Mother Wanted Us To Be.

Forgiving Does Not Usually Happen At Once. It Is A Process, Sometimes A Long One, Especially When It Comes To Wounds Gouged Deep. And We Must Expect Some Lapses...some People Seem To Manage To Finish Off Forgiving In One Swoop Of The Heart. But When They Do, You Can Bet They Are Forgiving Flesh Wounds. Deeper Cuts Take More Time And Can Use A Second Coat.