True understanding often opens the door to forgiveness.

It's been written that, He who does not forgive is guilty of the greater sin. That verse had always confounded me. I had considered it unjust at best and cruel at worst. But these words were not meant as condemnation—rather as illumination of an eternal truth: that to not extend forgiveness is to burn the bridge that we ourselves must cross.

We tend to demonize those we inflict pain on. It lessens our guilt.

We chain ourselves to those we don't forgive.

Forgiveness is release — to unlock the cage of another's folly to set ourselves free. To not forgive is to chain oneself to people and circumstances of the past. In doing so, our past becomes our future.

Hating those boys didn't do anything to the boys, just to me. So I pushed them and all my hate from my heart. Once I did that, God came back in.

Forgiveness is alchemy. To take something so base and ugly that you don't even want to think of it and turn it into something noble and fine. That is true alchemy. Remember that. It's not always easy, but if you can do that, you'll have a happy life.

We are chained to that which we do not forgive

To worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish, senseless thing to do

Of course Jonah is angry. When you haven't forgiven someone who has wronged you and then something good happens to them—when they are blessed or shown mercy or experience favor—it's infuriating.

If one by one we counted people out For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long To get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.