Tagged: “family”

I am feeling hopeless. I know people forgive to restore peace in a relationship, but that is not possible for me. What do you suggest?

Reasons for forgiveness go beyond only a restored relationship.  You can forgive because it is good in and of itself.  You can forgive to rid yourself of resentment. You can forgive to pass the insights on how to forgive to your children.  Thus, even if a restored relationship is not possible, you still may forgive if you choose to do this.  Our research shows that as people forgive, their sense of hope increases in a statistically-significant way.  You need not remain with a sense of hopelessness.

Learn more at 8 Reasons to Forgive.

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I have reconciled with my partner and I think I have forgiven him. Yet, at times, I think about his original unfaithfulness and it makes me angry all over again. Am I only fooling myself in thinking that I truly have forgiven?

The late Lewis Smedes wrote that forgiveness is an imperfect process for imperfect people.  Feeling anger again does not necessarily mean that you have not forgiven.  People can forgive and still have anger that rises and falls depending on the situation.  If you are in control of the anger and are willing to forgive now on a deeper level, then you have forgiven.

Learn more at Forgiveness for Couples.

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I have noticed that some of my friends just are angrier than others. They do not seem to show this anger only when recently treated unfairly by others. They are just angry people. Why do you think this would be?

Without knowing the person’s history, it is not possible to know for certain why one of your friends is consistently showing anger.  I suspect two issues.  First, the display of anger in the home, when your friend was growing up, might have been high.  In other words, angry behavior was demonstrated in the home and implicitly approved as a norm.  In other words, the friend learned anger by observing it being modeled in the home.  Second, the friend may have been hurt by the anger displays in the home and so there is resentment from the past that is affecting the person now, in the present.  If this second scenario is correct, then the friend might benefit from forgiving one of the parents who might have displaced the anger onto your friend while growing up.

Learn more at Family Forgiveness Guidelines.

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You are Invited to a Live Benefit Concert on Nov. 11

The Arts @ First United Methodist Church, Madison presents…

    Live on Stage from Around the World:
 90 Minutes of World Class Performances

2:00 pm
Sunday, November 11, 2018
First United Methodist Church
203 Wisconsin Avenue
Madison, Wisconsin
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Join us for a live concert featuring these internationally-respected performers:
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The Kat Trio, formally known as The Ekaterinburg (Russia) Classical Trio, is composed of Victoria Gorbich (violin), Vladislav Gorbich (Clarinet), and Joseph Ross (pianist). The trio’s unique Russian arrangements and seamless transcriptions of timeless melodies feature classical works, well-known inspirational songs, and even American pop standards, including Scott Joplin’s rags.

Click this link to hear The Kat Trio perform Joplin’s hit tune “The Easy Winners.”.

 

The Varshavski-Shapiro Piano Duo is comprised of pianists  Stanislava Varshavski (born in Kharkov, Ukraine) and Diana Shapiro (born in Moscow, Russia), who began playing together in 1998 after meeting at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy in Israel. After studying in Israel and the US, both pianists completed Doctoral degree studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011.
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Click here to listen to The Varshavski-Shapiro Piano Duo perform three of their piano classics.

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 is a classical guitarist from central Florida who has studied and performed around the world and who is now based in Madison, WI, where he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Classical Guitar Performance in 2010. Miles has just returned from his performance at the Classical Guitar Retreat at the Cathedral of the Isles, on the isle of Cumbrae, in Scotland.

Click here to see and hear Miles play six of his classical arrangements.
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Concert Master of Ceremonies will be Norman Gilliland who began hosting classical music broadcasts on Wisconsin Public Radio in the mid-1970s. Gilliland has also been the narrator for the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra’s popular summer series “Concerts on the Square” for the past 28 years.
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Meet the artists at a hospitality reception following the concert.
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…..Proceeds from this concert will support:
The First United Methodist Food Pantry
and
The International Forgiveness Institute

$10 donation suggested.


For more information contact:
Jonathan Little Management / JL Presents
Mobile: 608-219-1077
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Do children really understand what forgiveness is?  If they do not, then can they really forgive?

We have been helping teachers set up forgiveness education programs since 2002.  In our experience, children as young as age 6 can understand the worth of people, including the built-in worth of all people.  This is a foundational step in forgiving.  Even though young children may not understand the moral virtue of love (serving others for the others’ sake), they nonetheless can see that to forgive is to see the worth in the other and to offer kindness of some kind to the one who offended.  As forgiveness education occurs on higher grade levels, then students’ understanding of forgiving as an expression of mercy can become more sophisticated.

Learn more about Forgiveness Education for Children at: Curriculum

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