Another reader asks about How to Forgive

A reader asks: I am writing to you for guidance as I find it very difficult to forgive someone who hurt me. It is becoming harder for me to live or to face that person. Please help me.

Forgiveness is for you, so you can stop hurting - rather than for the other.
You don't have to forgive someone to their face - just in your own heart.

Also, to the extent practical, avoid the person who has hurt you if you believe they are likely to hurt you again. While you must forgive (for your own well-being), you shouldn't allow anyone to hurt you further.

Here are some articles that may help...

• Forgive and Forget? Can You Really Lift Your Burden of Resentments?
• How to Forgive and Move On
• Regrets, Resentments and the Path to Forgiveness
• Forgiveness is Essential to a Great Relationship
• Practical Forgiveness by Sheri Rosenthal

Forgiveness is really a gift to yourself -
have the compassion to forgive others,
and the courage to forgive yourself.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Forgiveness is an act of self-love and respect.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Forgiveness ... is the finishing of old business
that allows us to experience the present,
free of contamination from the past.
- Joan Borysenko

The key to forgiveness is to forgive from the heart -
not from the mind.
- Sheri Rosenthal

When we hate our enemies, we are
giving them power over us:
power over our sleep, our appetites,
our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.
Our enemies would dance with joy if only
they knew how they were worrying us,
lacerating us, and getting even with us!
Our hate is not hurting them at all,
but our hate is turning our own days
and nights into a hellish turmoil.
- Dale Carnegie

Forgive those who have injured you -
not because they deserve your forgiveness,
but because you can never be happy
until you release your anger and grant forgiveness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie


May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
    

Hopelessness

There are no hopeless situations; there are only men
who have grown hopeless about them.
- Clare Boothe Luce

When you say a situation or a person is hopeless,
you are slamming the door in the face of God.
- Charles L. Allen

Perhaps hopelessness is the
very soil that nourishes human hope;
perhaps one could never find sense in life without
first experiencing its absurdity.
- Vaclav Havel

A little more persistence,
a little more effort, and
what seemed hopeless failure
may turn to glorious success.
- Elbert Hubbard

Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams.
Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential.
Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in,
but with what it is still possible for you to do.
- Pope John XXIII

Our lives are defined not by the challenges we encounter,
but by how we respond to those challenges.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie


May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Thoughts on Success

Success is feeling good about yourself, and being happy.
Accomplishments, especially the accomplishments of being of service to others,
tend to create the feeling of success, but success is an inner state separate from accomplishments.

Have a dream. Take action toward that dream each and every day. Always love and respect yourself.
Love and respect yourself even when you fail. Then try again - in a different way.

Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.
- Babe Ruth

Sometimes you get the results you wanted,
sometimes you don't.
What matters is that you did your best.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Play to win, but be a good loser.
Have a plan for your life,
but accept whatever comes your way
with grace and gratitude.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie


May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
   

Why do some "respected Christians" reject Jesus' teachings?

Did you ever wonder why "respected Christians" advocate positions that are diametrically opposed to Jesus' teachings?

God wants all Christians prosperous.
- Benny Hinn

God wants you prosperous.
- Oral Roberts

God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money.
- Joel Osteen

I distrust those people who know so well
what God wants them to do,
because I notice it always coincides
with their own desires.
- Susan B. Anthony

Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come, follow me.
- Jesus (Mark 10:21)

Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink;
or about your body, what you will wear.
- Jesus (Matthew 6:25)

You cannot serve both God and money.
- Jesus (Matthew 6:24)

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.
- Jesus (Matthew 6:19)

He overturned the tables of the money changers.
“It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’
but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’"
- Jesus (Matthew 21:12-13)

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.
- Jesus (Matthew 19:24)

The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
- Timothy 6:10

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need
but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
- 1 John 3:17

The world has become an idolator of this god called money.
- Pope Francis
   

Aptitude or Attitude

A reader wrote to ask whether I agreed with the following quote...

Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
- Zig Ziglar

My answer...

What you accomplish in life is a function of BOTH what God gave you (aptitude, place of birth, etc.)
AND what you do with your gifts (your attitude, etc.).

BUT, you can't change what you have been given,
while you CAN CONTROL your attitude: being positive, working hard, etc.

SO your attitude does control your altitude in the sense that it is the only variable that you have the ability to change.

Someone born with an IQ of 56 isn't going to become a great nuclear physicist - they just aren't.
But with a positive attitude, they can live a great life, being happy and inspiring happiness in others.

May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie