Be Set Free

Some thoughts on forgiveness I read today, all from Wild At Heart:

• "As someone has said, forgiveness is setting a prisoner free and then discovering the prisoner was you."
• "Forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling, but an act of the will. As Neil Anderson has written, 'Don't wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving; you will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made.' We allow God to bring the hurt up from our past, for 'if your forgiveness doesn't visit the emotional core of your life, it will be incomplete.' We acknowledge that it hurt, that it mattered, and we choose to extend forgiveness...This is not saying, 'It didn't really matter'; it is not saying, 'I probably deserved part of it anyway.' Forgiveness says, 'It was wrong, it mattered, and I release you.'"