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Can you stop your memory on a dime, put it in reverse, and spin it in another direction the way you can reverse direction on a tape recorder? we cannot forget on command. so we just have to let the forgetting happen as it will; we shouldn't rush it, and we certainly should not doubt the genuineness of our forgiving if we happen to remember. the really important thing is that we have the power to forgive what we still do remember.
-Lewis B. Smedes
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Can You Stop Your Memory On A

Lewis B. Smedes
Can you stop your memory on a dime, put it in reverse, and spin it in another direction the way you can reverse direction on a tape recorder? we cannot forget on command. so we just have to let the forgetting happen as it will; we shouldn't rush it, and we certainly should not doubt the genuineness of our forgiving if we happen to remember. the really important thing is that we have the power to forgive what we still do remember.
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Memories Doubt Forgiving

More From Lewis B. Smedes

Once we have forgiven, however, we get a new freedom to forget. this time forgetting is a sign of health; it is not a trick to avoid spiritual surgery. we can forget because we have been healed. but even if it is easier to forget after we forgive, we should not make forgetting a test of our forgiving. the test of forgiving lies with healing the lingering pain of the past, not with forgetting the past has ever happened.
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When we forgive someone, we do not forget the hurtful act, as if forgetting came along with the forgiveness package, the way strings come with a violin. begin with the basics. if you forget, you will not forgive at all. you can never forgive people for things you have forgotten about. you need to forgive precisely because you have not forgotten what someone did; your memory keeps the pain alive long after the hurt has stopped. remembering is the storage of pain. it is why you need to be healed in the first place.
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They say that when god was in jerusalem he forgave his murderers, but now he will not forgive an honest man for differing with him on the subject of the trinity. they say that god says to me, "forgive your enemies." i say, "i do;" but he says, "i will damn mine." god should be consistent. if he wants me to forgive my enemies he should forgive his. i am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me. god is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt him. he certainly ought to be as generous as he asks us to be.
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Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. a healed memory is not a deleted memory. instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. we change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.
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I worry about fast forgivers. they tend to forgive quickly in order to avoid their pain. or they forgive fast in order to get an advantage over the people they forgive. and their instant forgiving only makes things worse... people who have been wronged badly and wounded deeply should give themselves time and space before they forgive... there is a right moment to forgive. we cannot predict it in advance; we can only get ourselves ready for it when it arrives... don't do it quickly, but don't wait too long.
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California is a tragic country — like palestine, like every promised land. its short history is a fever-chart of migrations — the land rush, the gold rush, the oil rush, the movie rush, the okie fruit-picking rush, the wartime rush to the aircraft factories — followed, in each instance, by counter-migrations of the disappointed and unsuccessful, moving sorrowfully homeward.
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