Lewis B. Smedes Quotes

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  Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Broken Heart, Forgiveness, Heartbroken

  "Healing by Degrees" by Jean-Paul Bedard, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 1, 2014.

  107 Copy quote

• Hope is to our spirits what oxygen is to our lungs. Lose hope and you die. They may not bury you for awhile, but without hope you are dead inside. The only way to face the future is to fly straight into it on the wings of hope....hope is the energy of the soul. Hope is the power of tomorrow.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Hope, Oxygen, Wings

  40 Copy quote

• When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life. You set a prisoner free, but you discover that the real prisoner was yourself.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Life, Freedom, Real

  "Forgiveness: You Can’t Have It Both Ways" by Maria Mayo, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 22, 2012.

  84 Copy quote

• To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Inspirational, Happiness, Inspiring

  102 Copy quote

• You can forgive someone almost anything. But you cannot tolerate everything...We don't have to tolerate what people do just because we forgive them for doing it. Forgiving heals us personally. To tolerate everything only hurts us all in the long run.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Running, Hurt

  77 Copy quote

• Forgiveness is God's invention for coming to terms with a world in which people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And He invites us all to forgive each other.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Hurt, People

  73 Copy quote

• Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, People, Risk

  67 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Time, Heart

  53 Copy quote

• You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Hurt, Forgiving

  104 Copy quote

• You and I were created for joy, and if we miss it we miss the reason for our existence. If our joy is honest joy, it must somehow be congruous with human tragedy. This is the test of joy's integrity. It is compatible with pain. Only the heart that hurts has a right to joy.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Hurt, Pain, Integrity

  60 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Mother, Lying, Differences

  63 Copy quote

• We attach our feelings to the moment when we were hurt, endowing it with immortality. And we let it assault us every time it comes to mind. It travels with us, sleeps with us, hovers over us while we make love, and broods over us while we die. Our hate does not even have the decency to die when those we hate die-for it is a parasite sucking OUR blood, not theirs. There is only one remedy for it. [forgiveness]

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Hurt, Hate

  10 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Hate, Long, People

  9 Copy quote

• With a little time, and a little more insight, we begin to see both ourselves and our enemies in humbler profiles. We are not really as innocent as we felt when we were first hurt. And we do not usually have a gigantic monster to forgive; we have a weak, needy, and somewhat stupid human being. When you see your enemy and yourself in the weakness and silliness of the humanity you share, you will make the miracle of forgiving a little easier.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Hurt, Stupid

  40 Copy quote

• Forgiving is, first of all, a way of helping yourself to get free of the unfair pain somebody caused you.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Pain, Forgiving, Way

  Lewis B. Smedes, Jeff Crosby (2007). “Days of Grace Through the Year”, p.237, InterVarsity Press

  30 Copy quote

• Forgive a wife-slammer if you can. But you don't have to live with him. Forgive a husband who is abusing your children if you can. But only after you kick him out of the house. And if you can't get him out, get help. It's available. In the meantime, don't let him near the kids, and don't let anyone tell you that if you forgive him it means you have to stay with him. [There's an important difference between forgiving a person and tolerating their bad behavior.]

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Husband, Children

  47 Copy quote

• I learned that gratitude is the best feeling I would ever have, the ultimate joy of living.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Gratitude, Joy, Feelings

  "A Life of Distinction: What It Takes to Live with Courage, Honesty, and Gratitude".

  11 Copy quote

• Waiting is the hardest work of hope.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Waiting, Hardest

  24 Copy quote

• When you give up vengeance, make sure you are not giving up on justice. The line between the two is faint, unsteady, and fine...Vengeance is our own pleasure of seeing someone who hurt us getting it back and then some. Justice, on the other hand, is secure when someone pays a fair penalty for wronging another even if the injured person takes no pleasure in the transaction. Vengeance is personal satisfaction. Justice is moral accounting...Human forgiveness does not do away with human justice.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Hurt, Giving Up

  17 Copy quote

• Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind...And each time it plays you feel the clap of pain again...Forgiving turns off the videotape of pained memory Forgiving sets you free.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Pain, Memories

  28 Copy quote

• Spoken forgiveness, no matter how heartfelt, works best when we do not demand the response we want. I mean that when we tell people we forgive them, we must leave them free to respond to our good news however they are inclined. If the response is not what we hoped for, we can go home and enjoy our own healing in private.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Healing, Home

  28 Copy quote

• Human sexuality includes more than hormones, organs, and orgasms; it runs through the psychic and spiritual ranges of our lives. We experience our sexuality on the spiritual level as a yearning for another person. We want to reach out and stretch ourselves into the depths of another. We want to bring the other person into the orbit of our deepest selves. We want to probe into the mystery of the other.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Running, Spiritual, Self

  Lewis B. Smedes (1976). “Sex for Christians: the limits and liberties of sexual living”, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

  34 Copy quote

• I worry about fast forgivers. They tend to forgive quickly in order to avoid their pain. Or they forgive fast in order to get an advantage over the people they forgive. And their instant forgiving only makes things worse... People who have been wronged badly and wounded deeply should give themselves time and space before they forgive... There is a right moment to forgive. We cannot predict it in advance; we can only get ourselves ready for it when it arrives... Don't do it quickly, but don't wait too long.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Pain, Order

  24 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Spiritual, Pain, Lying

  33 Copy quote

• When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Letting Go, Evil

  40 Copy quote

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