About Forgive

Thoughts of estrangement and unforgiveness take no prisoners. They may come like thieves in the night to waylay your thoughts, rob you of peace and hijack your joy in the simple pleasures of everyday life. Their presence is constant, unremitting … forever peering over your shoulder, or creeping just around the corner to trip up your thoughts or hamper your happiness.

 

For many, such thoughts are like being trapped in a Labyrinth … the Labyrinth of Sorrow and Suffering. Helplessly shackled, chained to walls of regret and suffering without forgiveness, the future is bleak at best. But through the Gift of Forgiveness, we can take back control and find a safe way out into the light.

 

There is a common ‘thread’ here, literal and metaphorical, which is reminiscent of Theseus in the Greek Minotaur myth. Theseus’s task is to save Ariadne by slaying the Minotaur deep in the heart of the Labyrinth. Ariadne gives him a ball of red thread, and Theseus unrolls it as he penetrates the labyrinth, locates the minotaur deep within its recesses, despatches it with his sword, and follows the thread back to the entrance and Ariadne.

 

Our red thread in the Labyrinth of Sorrow & Suffering is the fragile but immensely valuable Gift of Forgiveness. Not only will it help us find a way out of the Labyrinth, but it is to become a constant connecting, healing and nurturing thread throughout the book itself.

 

This is the story of Forgive which connects the 1100+ thoughts of over 800 amazing authors from the 8th century B.C. to the present day into 32 separate, yet connected chapters – each of which addresses a timeless aspect of the forgiveness journey.

 

It is my hope that this book will shed some additional light on a vexatious subject, and help others as it has helped me to understand what forgiveness really means and involves.