Begin with the Prayer of Abandonment.

Today’s theme is “forgiveness.” Not just each other, but those who move in your sphere of influence.

Remember the classic movie Love Story, in which one of the characters observes, “Loves means never having to say you’re sorry.”

That may be true in Hollywood, but in the real world . . . just the opposite is true, isn’t it?

This year I’ve watched this principle operate vicariously through my parents. A fifty-plus year marriage was broken overnight when my mother’s mind betrayed her, unraveled from the secret burdens she had been carrying since childhood.

Watching my father struggle to honor this woman he married in a way that is truly heroic, I have a new understanding of the word “forgiveness.” Sometimes forgiveness is not a one-time event, a before-and-after curative. Sometimes it is meted out like a momentary balm, a daily restorative that allows you to take that next step.

Forgiveness is the key that releases the prisoner from the inside.