Emphasize reconciliation, not resolution.

When you're fighting, it's absolutely crucial to keep remembering that they're trying to figure it out just like you are.

The scorecard is rooted in resentment, and the space between you is highly responsive to resentment. The scorecard is lethal because its rooted in fear - fear that we're on our own, that we're not going to be taken care of, that we're not going to get what we need...In order to get rid of scorecard, you have to choose to act in love instead of fear. To get rid of your scorecard, someone has to move toward the other first.

Arguing about how it literally happened can be an easy way to avoid facing the people in your life you need to forgive. For the people who first heard this story, the story would have had a provocative, unsettling effect. The Assyrians? The Assyrians were like a huge, gaping, open wound for the Israelites. Bless the Assyrians? The story is extremely subversive because it insists that your enemy may be more open to grace and love than you are.

Even the slightest tremors of bitterness can block the flow of love.

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.

I felt this new life surging up within me. I don't need people to be anywhere else. I can meet everybody where they are.

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.

when people mean to be good to you, you don't mind very much when they're not quite--always.

Doss dear, said Cousin Georgiana mournfully, some day you will discover that blood is thicker than water. Of course it is. But who wants water to be thick? parried Valancy. We want water to be thin--sparkling--crystal-clear.

It is more rewarding to resolve a conflict than to dissolve a relationship.

We treat our encounters with them with carefree casualness. We are certain that our relationships will naturally take care of themselves.