Forgiven Past Quotes & Sayings

We are often so convinced that we are so hurt and in pain, so much so that we opt not to forgive. Yet, as a consequence, that is what will make you weak! — Stephen Richards

The reason to forgive ourselves is not because we feel like it or because we want to see ourselves as blameless but because we limit what we can receive from God when we hold on to our past. He wants to do so much more than we could ever imagine. Forgiving yourself starts with believing in God's incredible love for you and accepting His amazing grace and mercy. If God Almighty can forgive us who are we to hold on to what He has not only forgiven but forgotten — Sue Augustine

I could stay depressed about my bad memory, but that's a negative way to live. Let's look on the bright side and list the advantages of having a bad memory.
(1) You can reread a book and see a movie over and over and enjoy it as much as the first time.
(2) If you make an inconvenient promise, you can pretend that you forgot about it and still be forgiven.
(3) This is the most important thing: you can keep coming up with ideas without being held back by convictions or the past. — Hirohiko Araki

Just because someone wakes up one morning and says, "Today I am going to be rich," does not automatically make them rich. So the same is true with forgiveness, it has to come from the heart with meaning, that is when it works best. — Stephen Richards

Disraeli was now at the height of his fame and popularity. He still had his enemies ... But the people as a whole now admired and respected him deeply ... His unscrupulous past and cynical opportunism were being largely forgotten or forgiven. He was gradually becoming recognized not only as the prophet of a new Conservatism, at once compassionate at home and positive abroad, but as a great statesmen whom the Queen did well to honour. Power had brought responsibility. By 1878 the transformation in public attitudes towards Disraeli was complete. — Christopher Hibbert

Forgiveness of the present is even more important than forgiveness of the past. If you forgive every moment - allow it to be as it is - then there will be no accumulation of resentment that needs to be forgiven at some later time. — Eckhart Tolle

The most basic method one can use to let go of the past is by looking at it as a learning experience. — Stephen Richards

How can I stand here forgiven and free of all my past mistakes, and not forgive you? — Arlene James

Overly playing the role of the victim can debar you from accepting responsibility for your actions and emotions. — Stephen Richards

You are the custodian of your own happiness. What other people say, do or think does not create a basis for your happiness. It is you who decides your own happiness, just like forgiveness. — Stephen Richards

You may need to forgive yourself for something in your past. God has already forgiven you if you've confessed & asked for His forgiveness. It's harder to forgive yourself, isn't it? You've been locked in this prison of anger & bitterness far too long. — Beth Barnhart

Because Jesus was forsaken, we are forgiven. Because He was beaten, we are healed. Because He was thirsty, we're awash in the water of life. Because He died, we have an eternal home. No matter how deep our regrets, how searing our conscience, how messy our past, we start each day with a clean slate. All our failures are washed away in His blood. — Robert J. Morgan

I realize that life is risks. It's acknowledging the past but looking forward. It's taking a chance that we will
make mistakes but believing that we all deserve to be forgiven. — Carrie Ryan

The past, has been erased; the present, forgiven; and the future, redeemed. — Anthony Liccione

When you forgive, you immerse yourself in healing waters. — Stephen Richards

My sin in the past: forgiven. My current struggles: covered. My future failures: paid in full all by the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace found in the atoning work of the cross of Jesus Christ. — Matt Chandler

Do the forgiveness and carry on going forward. Leave the worrying to the other person. Eat what is on your plate and leave the rest to them. — Stephen Richards

When you forgive, you are freed from some of the feelings of disapproval and it can contribute to lessening your negative thoughts. — Stephen Richards

Here is Christianity with its marvellous parable of the Prodigal Son to teach us indulgence and pardon. Jesus was full of love for souls wounded by the passions of men; he loved to bind up their wounds and to find in those very wounds the balm which should heal them. Thus he said to the Magdalen: "Much shall be forgiven thee because thou hast loved much," a sublimity of pardon which can only have called forth a sublime faith.
Why do we make ourselves more strict than Christ? Why, holding obstinately to the opinions of the world, which hardens itself in order that it may be thought strong, do we reject, as it rejects, souls bleeding at wounds by which, like a sick man's bad blood, the evil of their past may be healed, if only a friendly hand is stretched out to lave them and set them in the convalescence of the heart? — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Offer yourself forgiveness as a gift. The word 'give' is the basic keyword in the word forgiveness, therefore it relays a meaning therein. — Stephen Richards

I don't have mom issues or dad issues. I think I have found peace about many things in my past. I have forgiven and asked to be forgiven. — Xavier Dolan

Distancing yourself from some painful event is probably the ignition for the process of forgiveness. — Stephen Richards

Pain can cause us to learn no end of lessons, but without resolution there can be no healing! — Stephen Richards

As human beings, we are custom made to be happy. Why then would we want to change the order of things by not being happy? — Stephen Richards

All the resentment that lies in your heart is simply causing damage to you mostly. — Stephen Richards

If there ever was someone who had a control over you, someone who could cause you the greatest pain, someone who could ignore your most necessary requirements and someone for whom forgiveness were truly difficult to render, that person is none other than YOU. — Stephen Richards

If you are in Christ, you are fully and completely forgiven for all your sin-past, present and future. — Matt Chandler

'Caught' is a novel of forgiveness, and the past and the present - who should be and who shouldn't be forgiven. None of my books are ever just about thrills, or it won't work. — Harlan Coben

The choice to follow love through to its completion is the choice to seek completion within ourselves. The point at which we shut down on others is the point at which we shut down on life. We heal as we heal others, and we heal others by extending our perceptions past their weaknesses. Until we have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who that person is. Until we have forgiven someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is. Forgiving others is the only way to forgive ourselves, and forgiveness is our greatest need. — Marianne Williamson

Assassination creates an instant hero of its target. Any past sins are not just forgiven but utterly forgotten. — Lesley Hazleton

The moment we see beyond our personal desires to be felt sympathy for, that is the time we can actually start the journey to that final destination of true forgiveness. — Stephen Richards

Locking ourselves in the situation where we wish for sympathy and want to be looked at as the aggrieved party normally makes us powerless. — Stephen Richards

Here to second lives. May we all be forgiven for the inapt missteps of our past, and presented with new opportunities to accomplish the things that we've dreamed of doing. — Thomas DePrima

Remember, forgiveness is not a millstone but a milestone! — Stephen Richards

Your forgiveness or failure to forgive simply takes you nearer or further away from your ultimate goal. There are no two ways to deal with it, there is only one. — Stephen Richards

The idea of always wanting to be the victim in circumstances where you have been offended is a common human trait. Each person wants to be viewed as the aggrieved party. — Stephen Richards

Failing to forgive yourself for certain wrongs you committed in the past can create self-dislike. — Stephen Richards

In the process of forgiveness, you can only control your own actions and decisions. — Stephen Richards

Before making a snap judgment, ask yourself if it really is something that has hurt you or simply just made you angry at yourself for allowing it to happen. It's amazing what 'sleeping on it' can do. A new day sees a new beginning. — Stephen Richards

If there were past misdeeds, I do not believe we should nag or repeat them, never mind throw them in someone's face. If they sincerely apologized and we genuinely forgave them, we must move on. Learn from mistakes, but move on. If we bring them up and toss them at the offender, we may not have actually forgiven them, even if we claim we have. — Cathy Burnham Martin

Other people may well not find it relevant that you have forgiven yourself, but you need to know that it is not for them anyway. Everything at the moment is wholly about you. — Stephen Richards

You can learn to heal yourself, learn to understand that the pain you feel today is the strength you feel tomorrow! — Stephen Richards

The only thing that will make us remain glued to being the victim is our failure to handle the emotions that we go through and the pain that overcomes us. — Stephen Richards

Through salvation our past has been forgiven, our present is given meaning, and out future is secured. — Rick Warren

The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ came to do three things. He came to have my past forgiven, you get a purpose for living and a home in Heaven. — Rick Warren

That is who I was yesterday. Today I walk with God. — Shannon L. Alder

The minute we put aside our self-righteousness and move away from being the aggrieved, then we are on a healing process. — Stephen Richards

The past cannot be undone. At best it can be understood so, perhaps, it can also be forgiven. — Barb Malek

No, you don't remember, and sometimes it's best that way. Sometimes it's best to start fresh. Every day, fresh. Living always in the present, unburdened by the pain of the past. Most of us drag around our misdeeds like giant dead birds tied to our necks; we condemn ourselves to telling every stranger we meet the story of our anguish and inadequacies, hoping that one day we will be forgiven, hoping that we will find a person who will look at us and pretend to ignore the ridiculous dead birds hanging from our sunburned and weather-beaten necks. And if we find that person, and if we don't hate him for not hating us, if we don't hold him in contempt for not treating us contemptuously, as we expect to be treated - nay, as we demand to be treated - well, that person will be something of a soul mate, I imagine. — Garth Stein

The truth is, forgiving is a rather simple concept to grasp. It is often imagined that when you forgive, you have to reconcile with someone and yet this is a larger team in which forgiveness is just a player. — Stephen Richards

In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does. — C.S. Lewis

The moment we become forgivers, then we are in line to enjoy the benefits of forgiveness. — Stephen Richards

All sins are forgiven once you start making a lot of money. — RuPaul

The world is full of victims; don't add to the growing culture of "I've a story to tell", well not unless it's a story to help others overcome situations or as a warning. — Stephen Richards

By understanding the basic impediments to forgiveness, the repercussions of failing to forgive and the fruits of forgiveness, this will lead you gently to the shoreline of a distinct new and more powerful YOU. — Stephen Richards

The purpose of forgiveness is not to make sure that someone ends up changing into what you expect them to be, as this is dominance. The purpose is actually to make your own life better, more worthy and less stressful. Forgiveness reduces the hold that the wrongdoer has over you and empowers you. — Stephen Richards

In an unforgiving world, chaos rules. — Stephen Richards

We invent what we need to get us by, but in doing so we are really continuing to hold on to the pain of yesterday. — Stephen Richards

Life is like a garden. Quite naturally, leaves wither and flowers fade. Only if we clear the decay of the past then and there can we really enjoy the beauty of the new leaves and flowers. Likewise, we must clear the murkiness of the past bad experiences from our minds. Life is remembrance in forgetfulness. Forgive what ought to be forgiven; forget what ought to be forgotten. Let us embrace life with renewed vigor. We should be able to face every moment of life with renewed expectation, like a freshly blossomed flower. — Mata Amritanandamayi

Because I have forgiven my past, and God has forgiven my past, no person on earth can make me denounce my past. It's what made me who I am today. — Julie-Anne

You realize you've forgiven people, your past and yourself when you don't speak bad about them anymore, even if you're encouraged to do so, even if you remember you were once brutally broken because of them ...
you just move on, let go, let them be and let yourself be ... — Sanhita Baruah

It had been years since she question his fidelity, but he'd stepped on to the old fame track again, and that was where the road had taken them before. Infidelity could be forgiven, but forgetting it was impossible. Strangely, that wasn't what bothered her the most. What bothered her was that she didn't really care. — Kristin Hannah

I am alone. I am here. No one is watching me. In these hours of silence that I cherish, I talk to myself and reflect. That past, entrenched in time, motionless and infinite, has vanished onto thin air. None of it remains. Why, therefore, am I hurting so much? Why did I bring back with me this nameless pain? I followed the path I set for myself, and I have forgiven. I do not want to be chained to hatred or resentment. I want to have the right to live in peace. — Ingrid Betancourt

This pain you are avoiding is a very necessary pain that will make you strong again. — Stephen Richards

Blaming other people inevitably makes us blame ourselves because if we are pointing the finger at someone, practically, we are pointing it at ourselves as well. — Stephen Richards

First, forgive. Second, forget by choosing not to dwell on that which is forgiven and in the past. We have no right to keep in front of us what God has put behind Him. — David Jeremiah

When you forgive, it does not mean that you have submitted, it simply means that you have made a choice to stop bearing any grudge. — Stephen Richards

The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.
I want to imagine there will be peace when I am gone, that I will see all of the people I have loved and lost. At least that I will be forgiven. — Kristin Hannah

Assuming you are still lost in thought about when exactly you should forgive someone, well the time is NOW. — Stephen Richards

Forgiveness does carry with it numerous obstacles and one may well be surprised why many people find it a very difficult hurdle to jump over. — Stephen Richards

Forgiveness is not simply a single act, it is a full process. — Stephen Richards

I'm completely unlike a lot of other performers in the past who have been forgiven or come to terms with the real world because they tell everyone their performance is 'just a show.' And so, people say, 'Oh, it's OK then. We don't care. He's not really a bad person.' It's not just a show for me. It's my life. — Marilyn Manson

The pain you have gone through will give you the strength of character to come through it all, so long as you learn from what you have suffered then it was not suffering at all. — Stephen Richards

One way you can trace your way back to real and true happiness and joy is through forgiveness. — Stephen Richards

The pain you feel is simply because you do not yet have the strength to forgive. But you will grow strong again, that is for sure. — Stephen Richards

If we studied the issue of forgiveness with a wider perspective, we are bound to opt for it after all. — Stephen Richards

The past can't be changed, can it? It can just be forgiven. — Elizabeth George

You are not, though, forgiving so as to let others off with things. You are forgiving so that you can empower yourself to get over it and become strong. — Stephen Richards

A broken and mended relationship turns out to be stronger than one that has never been broken, almost like how bones can become even stronger once broken and then healed. — Stephen Richards

The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven. — C.S. Lewis

The same zeal and guts with which you were persistent not to forgive is the same zeal and enthusiasm with which you should be able to open up a new relationship with your partner, loved one or friend, one that is founded on commitment and dedication. — Stephen Richards

Being joyous or happy is not something you should feel guilty about. — Stephen Richards

Our attitude is a result of our perception of reality, which is as much a reflection of time as anything else:
what we have encountered in the past,
our present situation,
and how we see the future unfolding.

People of faith can put their past behind them; all has been forgiven.
We can also be buoyed in the present by the realization that all things must pass.
That leaves the greatest source of optimism for the Christian:
the certain future that lies ahead.

Christ has replaced death with immortality. With our souls entrusted to God through faith in our Savior, a glorious future with God is ours.

- Ed McMinn, Daily Devotions for Die-Hard Fans: Oklahoma State Cowboy — Ed McMinn

Just because you have been through a bad experience does not give you the ticket to keep going back to that situation over and over again and dramatizing it out of proportion. — Stephen Richards

Then there was Mr Mandela. Everybody knew about Mr Mandela and how he had forgiven those who had imprisoned him. They had taken away years and years of his life simply because he wanted justice. They had set him to work in a quarry and his eyes had been permanently damaged by the rock dust. But at last, when he had walked out of the prison on that breathless, luminous day, he had said nothing about revenge or even retribution. He had said that there were more important things to do than to complain about the past, and in time he had shown that he meant this by hundreds of acts of kindness towards those who had treated him so badly. That was the real African way, the tradition that was closest to the heart of Africa. We are all children of Africa, and none of us is better or more important than the other. This is what Africa could say to the world: it could remind it what it is to be human. — Alexander McCall Smith

Ah, dear Reader, is there a married man living who hasn't purged his drawers and closets of premarital memorabilia, only to have one more incriminating relic from yester-life rear its lovely head? Kristy contends that old flames never die, not completely. They smolder for years in hidden places. They flare up again just when you think you're over them. They can burn you if you don't deal with them. Such is the price I've had to pay for not rooting out the evidence of my life B.C. (Before Contentment). Or, perhaps, for having planted it too well.
But that, you see, is no longer an issue. Shall I tell you the crux of this argument? A man with a past can be forgiven. A man without one cannot be trusted. If there were no pictures in my drawer for Kirsty to uncover, I would have had to produce some. — Ted Gargiulo

Due to the need to co-exist with these inhuman and inconsiderate people, we will obviously be disturbed by their acts; something which if we look at closely actually means that we too could be affecting some other people negatively every once in a while. — Stephen Richards

If Caribbean writers have one single unifying theme, it is a strong sense of place, and of home. There is also - always, beneath the humour, which is a West Indian characteristic - a sadness: an awareness of a past that can never really be forgotten, or forgiven. — Malcolm Bradbury

Do not be deceived that you are weak because you have forgiven; instead be rest assured that you are now showing great strength - after all, forgiving is one of the most difficult things to do. — Stephen Richards

To forgive is to refuse to contaminate the future with the errors of the past. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

With my past forgiven, my present secure, and my future irrevocably guaranteed, why shouldn't I be enthusiastically optimistic? — Zig Ziglar

Sometimes we are very convinced that what we went through needs to be re-lived so we end up going back and forth to the demons of the past and eventually we fail to get over them. — Stephen Richards

As a forgiven son, I am justified, cleansed, washed clean. This is a greater reality than my sinful past. — Bill Johnson

Man wants to be reconciled to God; wants to know that the past is forgiven. — Matthew Simpson

To anybody who can hold the Present at its worth without being inappreciative of the Past, it may be forgiven, if to such an one the solitary old hulk at Portsmouth, Nelson's Victory, seems to float there, not alone as the decaying monument of a fame incorruptible, but also as a poetic approach, softened by its picturesqueness, to the Monitors and yet mightier hulls of the European ironclads. — Herman Melville

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. — Lewis B. Smedes

The practice of forgiving is a sequential practice that begins with excusing someone. — Stephen Richards

I am not sure that digging in our past guilts is a useful occupation for the very old, given that one can do so little about them. I have reached a stage at which one hopes to be forgiven for concentrating on how to get through the present. — Diana Athill

Do not allow yourself to be pulled into the role of embracing victimship as some sort of badge of honor to wear or flash around at any opportunity. — Stephen Richards

When you make up your mind to forgive, your happiness will almost automatically follow. — Stephen Richards