A husband can hurt your feelings, be inconsiderate, uncaring, abusive, irritating, or negligent. He can say or do things that pierce your heart like a sliver. And every time you start to pray for him, you find the sliver festering. It's obvious you can't give yourself to praying the way God wants you to until you are rid of it.

If busyness, workaholism, unforgiveness, strife, child-rearing, careers, separate interests, boredom, or miscommunication has crept in between you and your wife, God can work through your prayers to bring down the wall that separates you, melt the armor that has been put on for self-protection, and mold you together in unity.

Everyone, even within a family, is different. We all have different needs, different issues we struggle with. Part of being a family is learning to face those differences, forgive, and accept so that you can move on to love.

My pastor had told me that forgiveness doesn't mean justifying or condoning what he did, but it would begin the process of freeing me from the past, and it would offer a lost person the opportunity for redemption.

Forgiveness is an action, not an emotion.

There are some hurts that we experience that can be forgiven but we won't forget them.

Forgiveness is not a feeling - it's a decision we make because we want to do what's right before God. It's a quality decision that won't be easy and it may take time to get through the process, depending on the severity of the offense.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument.

When you make a decision to forgive it's a decision that you have to make intellectually.

Only those who are forgiven and who are willing to forgive will be capable of relentlessly pursuing justice without falling into the temptations to pervert it into injustice" (Exclusion and Embrace, 123).

You cannot pray for someone and hate them at the same time. Even if you are asking God to restrain their evil actions, you should also be praying that He will change their hearts. Only eternity will reveal the impact of our prayers for others.

We never gain in life by hurting others. Sometimes we try to elevate our own insecure egos by degrading and belittling those around us. Yet this produces only a false sense of self-esteem.