Lewis B. Smedes > Quotes

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
― Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

“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

“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

“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

“It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.”
― Lewis B. Smedes

“waiting is our destiny. as creatures who cannot by themselves bring about what they hope for; we wait in the darkness for a flame we cannot light. we wait in fear for a happy ending that we cannot write. we wait for a 'not yet' that feels like a 'not ever.”
― Lewis Smedes

“This is where I find myself now on the journey that God and I have been on, at the station called hope, the one that comes right after gratitude and somewhere not far from journey's end. It has been "God and I" the whole way. Not so much because he has always been pleasant company. Not because I could always feel his presence when I got up in the morning or when I was afraid to sleep at night. It was because he did not trust me to travel alone. Personally I liked the last miles of the journey better than the first. But, since I could not have the ending without first having the beginning, I thank God for getting me going and bringing me home. And sticking with me all the way.”
― Lewis B. Smedes, My God and I: A Spiritual Memoir

“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.”
― Lewis B. Smedes

“There are some things about God that, were I to stop believing them, my world would change color, my hope would turn sour, and the meaning of my life would be yanked inside out.”
― Lewis B. Smedes

“we should keep in mind the difference between sin and tragedy.”
― Lewis B. Smedes, Sex for Christians: The Limits and Liberties of Sexual Living

“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.”
― Lewis B. Smedes, Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don't Deserve – A Warm, Witty Spiritual Path to Peace and Joy

“Seeing reality for what it is is what we call discernment.”
― Lewis B. Smedes

“Restorative justice is not a replacement of retributive justice, but a complement. It seeks the rehabilitation of the wrongdoer and the repair of the victim's injury.”
― Lewis B. Smedes

“We are anxious in the face of our unchangeable past; we long to recreate segments of our private histories, but we are stuck with them.”
― Lewis B. Smedes