To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.

Once we have forgiven, however, we get a new freedom to forget. This time our forgetting is a sign of health; it is not a trick to forget spiritual surgery. We can forget because we are healed. But even if it's easier to forget after we forgive, we should not make forgetting a test of our forgiving. The test of forgiving lies with the healing of the lingering pain of the past, not with forgetting the past has ever happened. 

God invented forgiving as a remedy for a past that not even he could change and not even he could forget. His way of forgiving is the model for our forgiving. 

quotes by: Lewis Smedes

Verses to ponder:

One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 3:13-14

Words to remember:

New - Allowing God to change our hearts to change our lives. He transforms by giving us new hearts for Him. 
Remedy - Cure, Solution, Answer
Forgetting - putting something out of our minds; clearing our minds with less important things (because it has no power against us) so we can be free to do what is most important 

Reference: After the Boxes are Unpacked, Susan Miller