Father, I need a new heart!

"Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34a).

A number of years ago I went through a period of sheer hate. Then one day, after much prayer and examination of my own contribution, I realized that I was the one who needed the new heart. We can never know what is in the heart of another, but we can, through a very close union with the Man who forgave those who were nailing him to the cross, finally understand our own meanness and ask God to give us a new heart and mind. In the process of weeding my heart and mind, I jotted down some quotes that helped, and I’d like to share these:

•Whatever be the motive of insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly scarcely can deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect. Johnson.

•Slight small injuries, and they'll become none at all. Fuller.

•Lay silently the injuries you receive upon the altar of oblivion. Hosea Ballou.

•If men wound you with injuries, meet them with patience; hasty words rankle the wound, soft language dresses it, forgiveness cures it, and oblivion takes away the scar. It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it. J. Beaumont.

•One [person] pins me to the wall, while with another I walk among the stars. Emerson.

•Be prudent, and if you hear...some insult or threat...have the appearance of not hearing it. George Sand.

•That which cannot be repaired is not to be regretted. Johnson.

•They are the strong ones of the earth, the mighty food for good or evil,--those who know how to keep silence when it is a pain and a grief to them; those who give time to their own souls to wax strong against temptation, or to the powers of wrath to stamp upon them their withering passage. Emerson.

•The surest method against scandal is to live it down by perseverance in well-doing, and by prayer to God that He would cure the distempered mind of those who traduce and injure us. Boerhaave.

•The secret of language is the secret of sympathy, and its full charm is possible only to the gentle. Ruskin.

•But hushed be every thought that springs/From out the bitterness of things. Wordsworth.

•A fool's heart is in his tongue; but a wise man's tongue is in his heart. Quarles.

•Troubles, like babies, grow larger by nursing. Lady Holland.

•Valor consists in the power of self-recovery. Emerson.

•The greater your real strength and power, the quieter it will be exercised. Lowell.

•There is no truth which personal vice will not distort. J.G. Holland.

•Speak to living ears as you will wish you had spoken they are dead. Anonmous

•Great minds, like heaven, are pleased in doing good, though the ungrateful subjects of their favors are barren in return. Rowe.

•It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man I will oblige a great many that are not so. Seneca.

•The human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in return. Miss Edgeworth.

•If there is any person to whom you feel a dislike, that is the person of whom you ought never to speak. Richard Cecil.

•Jesus washing the feet of Judas is not concerned with claims and equities. PENordman.

•Ingratitude dries up the fountain of all goodness. Richelieu.

•Flints may be melted--we can see it daily--but an ungrateful heart cannot; no, not by the strongest and the noblest flame. South.

•Ingratitude is a nail which, driven into a tree of courtesy, causes it to wither... Basil.

•The roots of the deepest love die in the heart, if not tenderly cherished. Herder.

•A great mind will neither give an affront nor bear it. Henry Home.

•Patience and gentleness is power. Leigh Hunt.

•Little by little, the bitterest feelings are sweetened by the mention of them in prayer. And agony itself stops swelling, if we can only cry sincerely, "My God, my God!" Wm. Mountford.

•You are the seed that decides the harvest around you!

•How many a knot of mystery and misunderstanding would be untied by one word spoken in simple and confiding truth of heart! How many a solitary place would be made glad if love were there, and how many a dark dwelling would be filled with light! Dewey.

•Why is it that a blessing only when it is lost cuts as deep into the heart as a sharp diamond? Why must we first weep before we can love so deeply that our hearts ache? Richter.

•Religion is the hospital of the souls that the world has wounded. J. Petit-Senn.

•Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. (Attributed to Mark Twain).

“Oh, my dear friends, you who are letting miserable misunderstandings run on from year to year, meaning to clear them up some day, if you only could know and see and feel that the time is short, how it would break the spell! How you would go instantly and do the thing which you might never have another chance to do!” (Phillips Brooks).

Two men looked out from prison bars;
One saw mud, the other stars.
Anonymous