What Forgiveness IS NOT

From Lewis Smedes' Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve:

What Forgiveness Isn't

• Forgiving is not forgetting.

• Forgiving is not smothering conflict.

• Forgiving is not tolerance or excusing injustice, nor is it rationalizing away or minimizing a wrong done.

• Forgiving is not the absence of conflict.

     ("If two people agree, only one of them is necessary.")

• Forgiving is not the acceptance of wrong.

• Forgiving is not a feeling but is a choice – a decision of the will.

• Forgiving is not the same thing as reconciliation.

         (Reconciliation has conditions and takes two people. Forgiveness only requires one person and it can be the choice of the offended person to forgive the offender without any action or change of behavior on their part.)

From Sandra Wilson's Released from Shame: Moving Beyond the Pain of the Past:

Misunderstandings About Forgiving

• Forgiveness doesn't mean that nothing ever happened or that it was “no big deal.”

• Forgiving doesn't mean an automatic, instant, unlimited reconciliation.

• Forgiving doesn't mean never having any painful memories or emotions related to the hurts or the hurters.

Link HERE to the next post on forgiveness.