Portraits Of Forgiveness

Like an old, frayed blanket there are many loose threads in our relationships. Issues and conflict divide us from family, friends, and innumerable people we encounter throughout life. The process of forgiveness is necessary to restore and rebuild those relationships. In this book you will find great stories of how God works in the lives of people to bring about forgiveness and reconciliation - binding up the loose threads and making relationships even stronger than before. Table of Contents: Introduction Part I. Forgiveness in Family Life 1. Forgiveness Triumphs Over Evil - Joseph and His Brothers 2. Forgiveness Triumphs Over Shame - Jacob and Esau 3. Forgiveness Triumphs Over Ungratefulness - The Prodigal Son and His Father Part II. Forgiveness in Church Life 4. Forgiveness Triumphs Over Selfishness - Moses and the Wilderness Church 5. Forgiveness Triumphs Over Immorality - Paul and the Corinthian Believers 6. Forgiveness Triumphs Over Betrayal - Jesus and Peter Part III. Forgiveness in Community Life 7. Forgiveness Triumphs Over Hardness - Pharaoh, Moses, and the LORD 8. Forgiveness Triumphs Over Injustice - Jesus and the Roman Soldiers 9. Forgiveness Triumphs Over Fear - Philemon and Onesimus Part IV. The Process of Forgiveness 10. The Strategic Value of Forgiveness 11. How God Forgives Us 12. How We Forgive Others 13. Practicing Biblical Forgiveness 14. Frequently Asked Questions

Inspired by the award-winning film of the same name. If you were told that a murderer was to be released into your neighborhood, how would you feel? But what if it weren't only one, but thousands? Could there be a common roadmap to reconciliation? Could there be a shared future after unthinkable evil? If forgiveness is possible after the slaughter of nearly a million in a hundred days in Rwanda, then today, more than ever, we owe it to humanity to explore how one country is addressing perceptual, social-psychological, and spiritual dimensions to achieve a more lasting peace. If forgiveness is possible after genocide, then perhaps there is hope for the comparably smaller rifts that plague our relationships, our communities, and our nation. Based on personal interviews and thorough research, As We Forgive returns to the boundary lines of genocide's wounds and traces the route of reconciliation in the lives of Rwandans--victims, widows, orphans, and perpetrators--whose past and future intersect. We find in these stories how suffering, memory, and identity set up roadblocks to forgiveness, while mediation, truth-telling, restitution, and interdependence create bridges to healing. As We Forgive explores the pain, the mystery, and the hope through seven compelling stories of those who have made this journey toward reconciliation. The result is a narrative that breathes with humanity and is as haunting as it is hopeful.

What is God like? Answering this is the great quest of human existence. Because God is so different from us, we struggle to describe him. While doctrinal statements about God certainly have their place in Christian understanding, the Bible more often uses God's actions and roles to help us know him better. Indeed, some of the most helpful insights in Scripture arise when God is compared to something else: a rock, an eagle or a tower. And many "human" metaphors--metaphors taken from the world of actions and relationships--bring us even closer to understanding of God. In Portraits of God, Allan Coppedge suggests we look carefully at God as our Father, Redeemer, King, Judge, Priest and Creator. These portraits taken together give us an understaning of the Holy One for which no single category is adequate. These images work their way through the whole of Scripture. They are the doorway allowing us into the mysteries of God's very being. In Portraits of God, Coppedge offers a comprehensive survey, picturing a God who wants to be known personally and who has profoundly communicated himself. Coppedge finds the inexhaustible nature of God to be one of holiness reflected in and best described by the language of diverse roles. Approaching God in this way transforms us, as churches and individuals, to reflect God's own holy character. This is a book for students, pastors and churchgoers alike. Anyone desiring to know more deeply and wholly the Christian God revealed in the Bible will find in Portraits of God a treasure of scholarship and truth.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! “[The Gift of Forgiveness] will spark conversations across families, across friendships, at workplaces, everywhere.” –Maria Shriver A fresh, inspiring book on learning how to forgive, with firsthand stories from those who have learned to let go of resentment and find peace. "When we learn to embrace forgiveness, it opens us up to healing, hope, and a new world of possibility." --Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt Written with grace and understanding and based on more than twenty in-depth interviews and stories as well as personal reflections from Schwarzenegger Pratt herself, The Gift of Forgiveness is about one of the most difficult challenges in life--learning to forgive. Here, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt shows us what we can learn from those who have struggled with forgiveness, some still struggling, and others who have been able to forgive what might seem truly unforgivable. The book features experiences from those well-known and unknown, including Elizabeth Smart, who learned to forgive her captors; Sue Klebold, whose son, Dylan, was one of the Columbine shooters, learning empathy and how to forgive herself; Chris Williams, who forgave the drunken teenager who killed his wife and child; and of course Schwarzenegger Pratt's own challenges and path to forgiveness in her own life. All provide different journeys to forgiveness and the process--sometimes slow and thorny, sometimes almost instantaneous--by which they learned to forgive and let go. The Gift of Forgiveness is a perfect blend of personal insights, powerful quotations, and hard-won wisdom for those seeking a way to live with greater acceptance, grace, and peace. A PAMELA DORMAN BOOKS/VIKING LIFE TITLE

REVISED EDITION 2012 INCLUDING PATHWAYS TO PEACE! When was the last time you allowed yourself to forgive, to honestly explore and accept the sometimes painful realities that life delivers? Allowing chronicles one woman's remarkable and poignant journeytoward awareness, enlightenment, and the magical freeingwisdom of forgiveness. From a painful childhood to an illuminatingnear-death experience that ignited her path to freedomfrom Crohn's disease, Holly's story reaches from the pagesto inspire and heal. Here you'll share the experience of aphenomenal process of clear questioning, along with the realizationthat getting out of one's own way makes life's journeymuch more enjoyable. Which is to say, this author has thatunique gift of making a meaningful and very personal connectionwith the reader. This is an honest and encouraging portrayal of thecommon problems we all face in our ongoing search foranswers, personal truth, and happiness. These pages containa symphony of someone letting go and allowing life to love them. For simple and powerful steps for manifesting ease with healthand in your relationships, review The Allowing Handbook. Hundreds of professionals, parents, and young adults are applyingthe Catch & Release strategy to let go of what hurtsand ALLOW dreams. See what they have to say... www.hollyriley.com

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chair of The Elders, and Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with his daughter, the Reverend Mpho Tutu, offer a manual on the art of forgiveness—helping us to realize that we are all capable of healing and transformation. Tutu's role as the Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission taught him much about forgiveness. If you asked anyone what they thought was going to happen to South Africa after apartheid, almost universally it was predicted that the country would be devastated by a comprehensive bloodbath. Yet, instead of revenge and retribution, this new nation chose to tread the difficult path of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Each of us has a deep need to forgive and to be forgiven. After much reflection on the process of forgiveness, Tutu has seen that there are four important steps to healing: Admitting the wrong and acknowledging the harm; Telling one's story and witnessing the anguish; Asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness; and renewing or releasing the relationship. Forgiveness is hard work. Sometimes it even feels like an impossible task. But it is only through walking this fourfold path that Tutu says we can free ourselves of the endless and unyielding cycle of pain and retribution. The Book of Forgiving is both a touchstone and a tool, offering Tutu's wise advice and showing the way to experience forgiveness. Ultimately, forgiving is the only means we have to heal ourselves and our aching world.

Portraits of Forgiveness is a tale of life, love and the law in rural Tennessee. Chad Atkins has become deaf and his mother, Anne, blames his doctors who refuse to talk to her. As a medical malpractice suit, filed by country lawyer Sam Trestle, begins to rip Anne's family apart, Anne is forced to choose between money, revenge, truth and compassion as she fights to prove her case against the medical establishment and the powers of a small Tennessee town. From Chad's illness, through the legal technicalities of a complex lawsuit, this is at once the heartfelt story of a mother's pain, her desire for revenge, and her struggle for peace. Portraits of Forgiveness builds to a surprising courtroom climax, but ultimately leaves us with truths that endure far longer than the twists and turns of this captivating drama.