I’ve been reading The Fitting Room by Kelly Minter. I had the immense pleasure of hearing her speak on the book of Ruth a few months back at a local church and just LOVED her! I finally got my hands on one of her books and it is downright amazing. It’s about “Putting on the Character of Christ” – you know, Colossians 3:12, this is good stuff.

The chapters on forgiveness really resonated with me and did quite a bit of highlighting so I just wanted to get a few things down here so I can reference them more easily.

“When we experience the kindness of God that leads us to repentance, when we understand that no good thing dwells within us, when the staggering weight of our guilt is lifted because of what Jesus Christ has done and we sense the shame of our pasts fleeing as far as the east is from the west, our hearts soften. They stretch. We find we have copassion for others (bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you have with one another), in ways we never dreamed possible.” p. 75

“The command to forgive others as Christ forgave us is not a lesson in trying to muster up the strength to forgive like Jesus, but an assurance that – because Jesus forgave us – we can forgive like Him. And perhaps we will even want to.” p. 76

Luke 7:36-50 is a great story about forgiveness.

“Forgiveness is not the kind of thing with which you can turn the nozzle on and start blasting people. Hence, one of the greatest lessons of my life.” p. 81

“Yes, I knew that Jesus had died on the cross for the world and for me and that He’d forgiven me of my sins. But when He asked me to demonstrate the nuances of forgiveness, I felt like He was saying, “Kelly, when you start forgiving, you will be more convinced of My forgiveness for you.” I suppose it’s like this: The more He asked me to forgive, the more I understood His forgiveness. He wouldn’t ask me to be something He Himself is not.” p. 82

“…He speaks lovingly to me even in my defiance of Him… God blessed me with beauty despite my offenses… He lavishly blesses me, despite my many sins, despite that I’ve manipulated and bullied and demanded my way in the face of His love.” p. 82

“There was no space for me to love Jesus by pouring out my alabaster jar or worshipping Him with my service as long as all of my attention was on someone else’s sin.” p. 85

C.S. Lewis – “Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”

“Still, when we’re faced with the deepest betrayals of life… just the idea of forgiveness can seem like a reckless invitation to throw our very last vestige of control out the window. In our most painful circumstances, unforgiveness seems like the one thing we still have left!”

“For a relationship to be put back together and sewed up, you have to have the discussion and then apologies. But you don’t need to have either of these for forgiveness. You just need God.” p. 98-99