"Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you." (Ephesians 4:31-32 NRSV)
Forgiveness is giving up the hope of a different or better yesterday.
Forgiveness is one of the least understood concepts in the world. Most people seem to convert the word "forgive" into the word "condone." If we believed the two words to be synonymous, it would be virtually impossible to forgive. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary definitions illustrate the problem.
Forgive… to cease to feel resentment against [an offender].
Condone… to treat as if trivial, harmless, or of no importance.
The implication that we might trivialize or easily dismiss a horrible event is clearly unacceptable. However, if we rely on the actual definition of forgive, we would be on the right track.
-- John W. James and Russell Friedman in When Children Grieve
#3312
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