C. S. Lewis Quote: Prayer & Forgiveness

"I really must digress to tell you a bit of good news. Last week, while at prayer, I suddenly discovered--or felt as if I did--that I had really forgiven someone I have been trying to forgive for over thirty years. Trying, and praying that I might. When the thing actually happened--sudden as the longed-for cessation of one's neighbour's radio--my feeling was "But it's so easy. Why didn't you do it ages ago?" So many things are done easily the moment you can do them at all. But till then, sheerly impossible, like learning to swim. There are months during which no efforts will kdeep you up; then comes the day and hour and minute after which, and ever after, it bcomes almost impossible to sink...

"The important thing is that a discord has been resolved, and it is certainly the great Resolver who has done it. Finally, and perhaps best of all, I believed anew what is taught us in the parable of the Unjust Judge. No evil habit is so ingrained nor so long prayed against (as it seemed) in vain, that it cannot, even in dry old age, be whisked away." -C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm