Book Review - Forgiveness: A Lenten Study - by Marjorie Thompson

I had purchased this book from Better World Books, where I get a lot of used books.  We all know that forgiving someone is often one of the most difficult things we do in life.  The books starts out with a quote from Bishop Desmond Tutu from South Africa: there is "no future without forgiveness."  Indeed, without forgiveness, there is no future worthy of human life and there is no community as God intended it to be in his originating vision of creation.  In a wound that is so wounded, that is so full of strife and violence, forgiveness is the source from which we find new life.  This book goes through different aspects of forgiveness, such as its importance to community, how we need to self-examine ourselves before we can forgive, how we need to be honest and we need to repent before we can actually forgive, how reconciliation and restoration can be achieve as fruits of our forgiveness.  There are study guides at the end of the book for each chapter.  Having read this book just before the start of Lent was very much a gift for me.