It's all about forgiveness said Messy Christian in one of her truly memorable personal posts. This reminded me of a sermon I preached a while back on being a Peacemaker which had been inspired by the Ken Sande book of the same name:

In my notes I defined forgiveness as follows-

Forgiveness is
-Not a feeling
-Not forgetting
-Not excusing

Don't say 'it was nothing'

Rather,

Forgiveness means to DROP it
-I will no longer dwell on this incident.'
- 'I will not allow this incident to stand between us or hinder our relationship. '
- 'I will not talk to others about this incident.'
-I consign this to the past. I will not punish you for this incident or use it against you.

We need then to ban the use of the words always or never in our discussions with our friends and family about their shortcomings!

The sermon notes on the peacemaker, my sermon about forgiveness are available as well as an audio file of the sermon.