Sweet Evelyn, I think, I should have loved you better.Possessing perfect knowledge I hover above him as he hacks me to bits. I see his rough childhood. I see his mother doing something horrid to him with a broomstick. I see the hate in his heart and the people he had yet to kill before pneumonia gets him at eighty-three. I see the dead kid's mom unable to sleep, pounding her fists against her face in grief at the moment I was burying her son's hand. I see the pain I've caused. I see the man I could have been, and the man I was, and then everything is bright and new and keen with love and I sweep through Sam's body, trying to change him, trying so hard, and feeling only hate and hate, solid as stone.

God's grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God's grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word ... it's that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit. Grace isn't about God creating humans and flawed beings and then acting all hurt when we inevitably fail and then stepping in like the hero to grant us grace - like saying, "Oh, it's OK, I'll be the good guy and forgive you." It's God saying, "I love the world too much to let your sin define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new.

It seems like every day you have to deal with problems, interpersonal problems, survival, and so on and so forth. But you only have one problem and there is one solution to that problem. Isn’t that nice to think it is so simple? If there is such a thing as truth, it will be simple – one problem and one solution. If I perceive the problem to be in the world, it cannot be solved because the Holy Spirit is the one answer to that one problem and the Holy Spirit is in the mind. God did not place the answer where the problem was not. He did not place the answer out on the screen. He did not place the answer in the world; he placed the answer in the mind of the sleeping Son. And that is where the Holy Spirit is.

You’ve been tested.’ He advised me totry and ‘forgive and pardon, and this way seek to become beloved by God’ without my forgivenessbeing tied to the one who wronged me. ‘This is the Divine remedy,’ he emphasised, ‘remind your egowhen it resists. Don’t you love for God to forgive you on the day, too?’ Reflecting on what the Shaykhsaid, his advice undid a knot in my heart and I resolved to work on my forgiveness purely for the sakeof God. The Shaykh also recommended: ‘Be careful about what you pray for in the future.’ Hepromised to pray for me personally, asking God to send me a Muslim husband who would value andcherish me for who I am. Insha’ Allah!

At times life orchestrates a very efficent, yet rather painful, modality to allow us to release grievances and judgements towards some people. It consists in slowly setting the stage for us to be in the same circumstances, which eventually lead us to behave exactly like those people.Each time we express hard judgments regarding what is wrong with others, a complex and long series of events is activated till we reach the moment when we can see our own finger pointing against us.There is also another way, the most efficent and painless, which does not require any complexity and long orchestration, for it simply takes place in the present. It consists in abstaining right from the beginning from any judgement towards others.

I knew that to really minister to Rwanda's needs meant working toward reconciliation in the prisons, in the churches, and in the cities and villages throughout the country. It meant feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the young, but it also meant healing the wounded and forgiving the unforgivable.I knew I had to be committed to preaching a transforming message to the people of Rwanda. Jesus did not die for people to be religious. He died so that we might believe in Him and be transformed. I'm engaged in a purpose and strategy that Jesus came to Earth for. My life is set for that divine purpose in Jesus Christ. I was called to that--proclaiming the message of transformation through Jesus Christ.

When you feel angry or frustrated at a brother for using a particular defense -- being controlling or whatever it is -- you are failing to forgive yourself for the very same attempt; you still believe that the defense has a reality. You are seeing it out there but when you start to pull it back to your mind, you start to see the control in yourself. The guilt from transferring it from one seeming person/body to another seeming person/body is enormous. Instead of blaming your brother, the blame gets turned onto your own seeming body, but it is still the same error. We have to see that I am mind; this identity that I took off of my brother but still saw in myself is also just a construct in my mind. Otherwise, what good is the transfer?

There's no task in this life more difficult than forgiving a loved one,when we're hurt by someone we love,something breaks inside us that leaves us paralyzed and unable to think clearly,if your love was true and unconditional, you'll love them no matter what,for true love grows from pain,hurt and tears,so, although difficult and painful you desperately try to forgive. Forgiveness is the most noble form of love,without love forgiveness wouldn't be possible, it will help you stop going into the past,and it will enable you to be a stronger and better person and start mending your heart. The past does not change with forgiveness, nothing can undo what's been done, but the future changes for sure. Forgiving brings freedom.

The well from which we draw our love to give to other people, should never be only as deep as the well wherein resides the love we have already received in our lives. The cycle must be broken. The former well must be abandoned and we must create a love in our hearts for others, from the bricks and the mortar of our own visions. Our raw materials must come not only from what we received; but our raw materials must come from what we envision to create. From your desires and your visions— your bricks and mortar should materialize. And if your former well is completely empty and dry— so what— you don't owe it to your past, to the people who hurt you, to make that emptiness and that void, your place for drawing water from!

With time and perspective we recognize that such problems in life do come for a purpose, if only to allow the one who faces such despair to be convinced that he really does need divine strength beyond himself, that she really does need the offer of heaven’s hand. Those who feel no need for mercy usually never seek it and almost never bestow it. Those who have never had a heartache or a weakness or felt lonely or forsaken never have had to cry unto heaven for relief of such personal pain. Surely it is better to find the goodness of God and the grace of Christ, even at the price of despair, than to risk living our lives in a moral or material complacency that has never felt any need for faith or forgiveness, any need for redemption or relief.

You want to know how to stop this killer? Forgive yourself, and he’lldisappear from your life forever.”“Thanks. I’ll be sure to do that.”And I know:1. This is almost the same conversation I’ve had with myself many timesbefore.2. Gordon’s only trying to help.But it doesn’t matter.I:1. Say, “See you later.”2. Step outside.3. Close the door.I don’t want to, really. I want to go back inside and believe Gordon’s words,like a child believing in a fairy tale, and I want to escape this nightmare forever.But I can’t.I realize now that it’s easy to tell the difference between a real problem andan imaginary one.It’s just the terror of facing the truth that’s hard.

Her face crumpled and he felt her pain as if it was his own. He wanted to take it back, but just like that memory, it was always going to be there.She worked to get control over her features, then said, “I’m sorry I didn’t defend you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell them you were my guest.”Jem hadn’t thought he cared anymore, not really, but her words were tugging loose the hard, painful knot in his chest. “It’s okay.”She shook her head. “It’s not. It wasn’t.”He reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand. He didn’t know what else to say and all he wanted was to touch her skin, let her know that he wasn’t that boy anymore and that she wasn’t that girl.

Her face crumpled and he felt her pain as if it were his own. He wanted to take it back, but just like that memory, it was always going to be there.She worked to get control over her features, then said, “I’m sorry I didn’t defend you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell them you were my guest.”Jem hadn’t thought he cared anymore, not really, but her words were tugging loose the hard, painful knot in his chest. “It’s okay.”She shook her head. “It’s not. It wasn’t.”He reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand. He didn’t know what else to say and all he wanted was to touch her skin, let her know that he wasn’t that boy anymore and that she wasn’t that girl.

Christian consciousness experiences itself in a curious sense as LIBERATED TO FAIL, without intolerable damage to self-esteem and without any reduction of moral seriousness. We are free to be inadequate, free to foul things up, and yet affirm ourselves in a more basic sense than the secular moralist or humanistic idealist (who can affirm themselves only on the basis of merits and accomplishments. We are free to choose and deny finite values, free to take constructive guilt upon us and to see it as an inevitable and providentially given aspect of our fallen human condition.All that we have said leads us to the pinnacle of this good news: In Jesus Christ we need no longer be guilty before God. It is only before our clay-footed gods that we stand guilty!

And when Jesus declared, 'It is finished,' He meant it. God’s punishment for our sin was paid for, permanently settled, finished— 100 percent. If you have responded in faith to God’s free pardon through Jesus, then God will never punish you for your sin. It’s finished. No more. If you screw up today or tomorrow (which you will), it’s already been paid for through Jesus. 'There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,' Paul said (Rom. 8: 1). None. God will not and cannot condemn you after He has already condemned Jesus for you. It’s impossible. God will never be angry with you since His anger was poured out on Jesus. All of it. One hundred percent.Charis: God's Scandalous Grace for Us (p. 169).