Forgiveness and Love

When God forgives,
something decisive happens.
When we forgive, again,
something decisive happens.

In Healing Life’s Hurts,
Matthew and Dennis Linn
tell of an inner-healing workshop they observed.
The men and women present
were all once divorced and had remarried.

They had come to retreat
hoping for healing of
the anger and hostility they felt
toward their former spouses.

During the weekend session,
the remarried couples
were slowly and prayerfully
led into ways in which they could grow
from their past relationships and use
what they learned to build new patterns of love
and forgiveness in their current marriages.

After a year, the group reunited
to discuss what had happened
in the aftermath of the retreat.
The Linns reported: “Out of the seven
who forgive their former spouse
after the years of resentment,
five found their former spouses had suddenly
made an effort to forgive and build a bridge toward them.

One suddenly called
a week after the workshop,
another traveled two thousand miles
to see his family, and another wrote
his first letter in ten silent years.

Forgiveness frees us
to both give and receive love.
It is one of the most important things we must practice in marriage
Forgiveness is giving love when there is no reason to.