Lewis B. Smedes
Lewis B. Smedes
Lewis Benedictus Smedeswas a renowned Christian author, ethicist, and theologian in the Reformed tradition. He was a professor of theology and ethics for twenty-five years at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. His 15 books, including the popular Forgive and Forget, covered some important issues including sexuality and forgiveness...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
healing opportunity people
The moment of grace comes to us in the dynamics of any situation we walk into. It is an opportunity that God sews into the fabric of a routine situation. It is a chance to do something creative, something helpful, something healing, something that makes one unmarked spot in the world better off for our having been there. We catch it if we are people of discernment.
forgiving firsts doe
The first and often only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness... When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.
hate bitterness heal
The longer we hate, the harder it is to heal us.
forgiveness past names
The rule is: we cannot really forgive ourselves unless we look at the failure in our past and call it by its right name.
shame guilty shame-and-guilt
We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are.
grace secret edges
The secret of grace is that it can be all right at the center even when it is all wrong on the edges.
forgiveness hurt memories
If we say that monsters [people who do terrible evil] are beyond forgiving, we give them a power they should never have...they are given the power to keep their evil alive in the hearts of those who suffered most. We give them power to condemn their victims to live forever with the hurting memory of their painful pasts. We give the monsters the last word.
kindness moving support
Kindness is the power that moves us to support and heal someone who offers nothing in return.
forgiveness forgiving
We forgive freely or we do not really forgive at all.
forgiveness eye world
Gandhi was right: if we all live by 'an eye for an eye' the whole world will be blind. The only way out is forgiveness.
vanity people soul
Because arrogance is born in personal vanity, arrogant people are driven without mercy. They can never get enough power to fill the soul's needs or enough respect to overcome the fear that they deserve less than they are getting.
memories doubt forgiving
Can you stop your memory on a dime, put it in reverse, and spin it in another direction the way you can reverse direction on a tape recorder? We cannot forget on command. So we just have to let the forgetting happen as it will; we shouldn't rush it, and we certainly should not doubt the genuineness of our forgiving if we happen to remember. The really important thing is that we have the power to forgive what we still do remember.
pain forgiving way
Forgiving is, first of all, a way of helping yourself to get free of the unfair pain somebody caused you.
forgiveness hurt children
Forgiving is an affair strictly between a victim and a victimizer. Everyone else should step aside...The worst wounds I ever felt were the ones people gave to my children. Wrong my kids, you wrong me. And my hurt qualifies me to forgive you. But only for the pain you caused me when you wounded them. My children alone are qualified to forgive you for what you did to them.