Caring for the garden of your soul requires vigilance. Weeds of unforgiveness can quickly spring up and choke out the beautiful qualities God wants to grow in you. Whether the injuries done to you by others are small or great, your spiritual and emotional well-being depends on cultivating a forgiving heart. But how? Is forgiveness a feeling or a choice? Does it mean excusing the injury? Does it free the offender from the consequences of his or her actions? Debunking the myths that hinder forgiveness, Denise George takes you through challenging but critically important lessons on forgiving others. This six-week devotional Bible study experience includes twenty-minute weekday sessions; sixty-minute weekend sessions for deeper personal, mentor, or group study; and a five-minute weekend Scripture prayer, all to enrich your dialogue with God and interaction with Scripture. Designed to stimulate your personal growth and explore the hard questions of life one-on-one with God, Cultivating a Forgiving Heart will help you uproot bitterness so that joy and peace can flourish in your heart.

Forgiveness. Whether the injuries done to you are small or great, your spiritual and emotional well-being depends on cultivating a forgiving heart. But how? An in-depth six-week devotional Bible study for women in the Secrets of Soul Gardening series.

A practical guide by the man Time magazine has called “the forgiveness trailblazer.” While it may seem like a simple enough act, forgiveness is a difficult, delicate process which, if executed correctly, can be profoundly moving and a deep learning experience. Whatever the scenario may be—whether you need to make peace with a certain situation, with a loved one or friend, or with a total stranger—the process of forgiveness is an art and a science, and this hands-on guide walks readers through it in 8 key steps. How can we become forgivingly “fit”? How can we identify the source of our pain and inner turmoil? How can we find meaning in what we have suffered, or learn to forgive ourselves? What should we do when forgiveness feels like a particularly tall order? All these questions and more are answered in this practical book, leading us to become more tolerant, compassionate, and hopeful human beings.

2016 Books For A Better Life Award winner Drawing on the latest research and remarkable tales of forgiveness from around the world, journalist Megan Feldman explores how forgiveness, when practiced in the right ways, can save lives, make us happier and healthier, and lead to a better world. Veteran journalist Megan Feldman was still smarting over a bitter breakup when she began working on a feature article about a father named Azim who had truly forgiven the man who killed his son. She had found herself totally and completely unable to forgive her ex-boyfriend, and yet Azim had managed to forgive his own son’s murderer. Forgiveness has long been touted by religious leaders as a moral imperative. But Megan wanted to know exactly what it means from a scientific perspective, and why forgiving those who have wronged you is one of the best things you can do for yourself. In Triumph of the Heart, Feldman embarks on a quest to understand this complex idea, drawing on the latest research showing that forgiveness can provide a range of health benefits, from relieving depression to decreasing high blood pressure. The journey takes her from New Zealand and the Maori who practice their own form of restorative justice, to a principal in Baltimore who uses forgiveness techniques to eradicate violence in her school, and to recovered addicts who restarted their lives by seeking and receiving forgiveness. She travels to Rwanda to learn about forgiveness in the face of unthinkable atrocities. This book is a guide for how the practice of forgiveness can help us all in our search for a satisfying, fulfilling, good life.

Inspiration, encouragement and spiritual practice from across faith traditions for all who seek hope and wholeness through letting go. We all carry wounds that can bind up our hearts and keep us from fully loving―and fully living―in the present. Our pain may come from devastating trauma or unconscious resentment from accumulated everyday grievances. No matter the depth of the hurt, in the warmth and wisdom of this inspiring guidebook readers will find courage to face the past and begin the process of letting go. Contributors active as spiritual directors, clergy, religious scholars and retreat leaders draw on the depths of their own spiritual practice, religious traditions and sacred texts to offer hope and encouragement for the journey of forgiveness. They provide a rich variety of practices for cultivating an open and forgiving heart, both toward ourselves and others, as well as step-by-step guidance in the process of forgiveness. They share their insights on: Healing ourselves through forgiveness Overcoming obstacles to forgiveness Letting go of resentment, blame and anger Forgiving ourselves Deciding whether to restore relationships Asking for and accepting forgiveness Receiving Divine forgiveness Fostering mercy in our hearts Seeking peace and reconciliation in our communities For use by individuals as well as groups in worship or counseling settings, this wide range of perspectives, offered with grace and compassion, will gently move readers toward the wholeness and freedom that come from true forgiveness. Contributors: Nancy L. Bieber • Rev. Carolyne Call • Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell • Nancy Barrett Chickerneo, PhD • Paul Wesley Chilcote, PhD • William Cleary • Nancy Corcoran, CSJ • Linda Douty • Rabbi Ted Falcon • Marcia Ford • Rev. Dr. Marie M. Fortune • Tamar Frankiel, PhD • Rabbi Edwin Goldberg, DHL • Caren Goldman • Rev. Steven Greenebaum • Judy Greenfeld • Kent Ira Groff • Diana L. Guerrero • Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar • Kay Lindahl • Rabbi David Lyon • Pastor Don Mackenzie • St. Maximos • Ron Miller • Diane M. Millis, PhD • Rev. Timothy J. Mooney • Rev. Dr. John Philip Newell • Linda Novick • Rev. Larry J. Peacock • Gordon Peerman • M. Basil Pennington, OCSO • Jan Phillips • Susan Quinn • Imam Jamal Rahman • Marty Richards, MSW, LCSW • The Rev. Canon C.K. Robertson, PhD • Rev. Nanette Sawyer • Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper • The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori • Aaron Shapiro • Rami Shapiro • Louise Silk • Rev. Susan Sparks • Aaron Spevack, PhD • Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz • Molly and Bernie Srode • Tom Stella • Sohaib N. Sultan • Terry Taylor • Yoland Trevino • Rev. Jane E. Vennard • The Rev. Peter Wallace • Cynthia Winton-Henry

Avid readers of George's work and those just discovering her wisdom will thoroughly enjoy having and giving this gracious, hardcover volume of encouragement.

An encouraging guide for the angry or heartbroken soul, in the form of uplifting stories and quotations. Sometimes forgiveness can feel unfathomable, unreachable, or even just plain wrong. Inspiring Forgiveness throws wide open the doors of possibility within the human heart with the wise words of philosophers, writers, poets, and great thinkers from across centuries and continents. Each offering can serve as guideposts along the path to bringing greater forgiveness into our lives. This book also tells the stories of real-world people—from the Dalai Lama to Congressman John Lewis and more—whose lives were changed forever by forgiveness, including for themselves. Just bearing witness to these experiences can itself be transformative. One wise teacher quoted in this book, Pema Chödrön, offers a simple practice for cultivating forgiveness: “First we acknowledge what we feel—shame, revenge, embarrassment, remorse. Then we forgive ourselves for being human. Each moment is an opportunity to make a fresh start.” This book is a collection of those moments. Inspiring Forgiveness consists of twelve true stories of people who have endured great pain at the hands of others and have found a way to open themselves to forgiveness in its many forms. Each story is followed by extraordinary poems that speak to forgiveness as well as a collection of over 100 inspiring quotations. “What a wonderful illumination of the power of forgiveness Barbara Bonner has given us. The book’s unique gathering of personal stories, poems, and quotations shows that forgiveness is not a momentary feeling but an attitude toward life, a practice of deep self-healing, and a path to freedom. Inspiring Forgiveness is aptly titled, for it does more than tell us about forgiveness, it inspires us to live it.” —John Brehm, editor of The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy

R.T. Kendall has given us a treasure…the hope and possibility of experiencing incredible freedom and peace that can only come when we walk in total forgiveness. One of the core messages of the gospel is that of total forgiveness…not only that we can be totally forgiven by God, but also that we must, in turn, totally forgive others. Our culture is bound up in bitterness, resentment, and wallowing in wounds inflicted upon us by others, wounds that we all too easily accept and even cling to! This revised and updated best seller lovingly challenges believers to look within and root out those hidden and hardened places where subtle resentments and areas of un-forgiveness have been allowed to remain.

Recounts experiences from the author's life, using the metaphor of gardening to speak to our longing for spiritual growth, a healthy lifestyle, and a more centered life. Enriched by Bible quotations and spiritual classics, his stories will lead you to new insights into the kind of life the Creator intends for us.

Why is revenge such a pervasive and destructive problem? How can we create a future in which revenge is less common and forgiveness is more common? Psychologist Michael McCullough argues that the key to a more forgiving, less vengeful world is to understand the evolutionary forces that gave rise to these intimately human instincts and the social forces that activate them in human minds today. Drawing on exciting breakthroughs from the social and biological sciences, McCullough dispenses surprising and practical advice for making the world a more forgiving place. Michael E. McCullough (Miami, Florida), an internationally recognized expert on forgiveness and revenge, is a professor of psychology at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, where he directs the Laboratory for Social and Clinical Psychology.