I’ve been doing forgiveness wrong.

I’ve always been taught to forgive and forget or worse forgive but never forget and encapsulate that anger and bitterness until the day you die. Hold onto that offense and pull it out when you need some ammo against that person. Yeah, that’s pretty toxic.

I’ve always known that I’m supposed to forgive because it’s the right thing to do but I’ve never understood how deep forgiveness actually is or how healing it can be. I’ve been walking through forgiveness for a few months now. Back in November my life imploded/exploded, all the ploded‘s. I was struggling with a new perspective, navigating what a new future looked like and how to fix all the brokenness that was now the new me. I knew that my first step was to turn to the Lord but I didn’t want to. I didn't want to let go of the hurt and anger I was feeling every second of every day. I didn’t want to show any type of forgiveness for fear that by showing it I would give the ones who offended me the sense of “she’s over it and what we did is totally excusable”. “IT” for the record was not and is not.

I started reading Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by: Lysa Terkeurst which was an absolute God send. Lysa Terkuerst’s book is so relatable and has hit the nail on the head in every single chapter I’ve read. This book plus several other sources have really helped me process forgiveness in a new light.

First of all I’d like to talk about Gods timing. When the wrong that was done to me came to light I couldn’t see past that night. I was so shocked that I literally couldn’t even process what the next day could look like. I thought “idk how I will ever fully forgive this and if I will ever actually mean it if I say it”. As I mentioned above I wanted to hold onto that rage for as long as I could because it was going to take possibly months to years for this person to prove to me that they could be forgiven to prove that I wouldn’t look like a fool again for believing the best in them. I didn’t want to look stupid nor did I want to look weak in the eyes of others or worse a doormat that rolled over and let the offenders off the hook. But y’all Gods timing is certainly Gods timing. You want to know how long it took me to finally accept that I wanted to start the process of forgiveness? Two weeks after the offense. TWO WEEKS!! How ridiculous is that? So ridiculous that I didn’t want to even tell people that that was the path I had chosen at first because this type of offense warranted at LEAST one year of trials for my offender to go through. Then, at the end of that one year I would tally up all the challenges and see if they excelled to truly deserve my forgiveness and restoration in the relationship. This was a blessing though because for those two weeks I couldn’t even wake up without taking Dramamine to literally walk from one room to another. I think I might have eaten like two actual full meals in that time span as well. I was drained in every physical and emotional way and God knew I needed to open my heart to the softness that forgiveness can give. To un-cage my heart because I’m not setup to harness bitterness and rage for very long obviously.

I remember the night I chose to start letting go of all my hurt feelings. I hugged my offender. That’s all I did. No words were said and they didn’t need to be. This didn’t mean I forgave and began to heal no, not at all. It meant that I knew I had a lot of work to do on my own and I was ready. I was ready to stop taking motion sickness pills everyday of my life just to live for the day.

The next thing I learned about forgiveness almost brought me to my knees because I had never ever heard this before and it is one of the most beautiful and sobering truths about God that I will always forever cling to.

“Entrust it to God. He knows what happened and will address it all in equal measures of mercy and justice.” - Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by: Lysa Terkeurst

God will handle the wrongs done to you and make them right in equal measures of mercy AND justice. I still cry when I recite it to myself when I find myself holding onto a detail of the offense and not leaving it at Gods feet. I’ve seen the miracles God can do and I’ve seen his goodness. So I know that anything God has in store is three-fold whatever I could do with my petty abilities. I’ve felt Gods conviction in my own life so I can only imagine the internal work God is doing within them.

Only God can take you from daydreaming about crimes that would land you on “Why women kill” to raising your hands in the shower and lifting your offenders names up to the Lord and praying for them. Praying that they are healed and loved like they’ve never been loved before so that they can stop all their destructive ways and live a life to glorify God. The reason they hurt you the way the did and made the decisions they made are because they are just as broken as you and maybe even more so in ways that lead them to making the life altering choices that they made. We’ve all heard it before but hurt people - hurt people. Forgiveness also makes you see those offenders with compassion. Even if you can’t fully forgive them you can at least forgive them for being human and know that the hurt they have in their hearts was never healed the right way and destruction is all they know.

If you’re getting anything from this post then thank Lysa Terkeurst because these are mostly all revelations I’ve had while reading her book. An exercise I learned from Lysa is writing down the offenses done to me and then speaking that I forgive my offenders even if I didn’t actually believe it/feel it. You say I forgive blank for blank then follow with “And whatever my feelings don’t yet allow for, the blood of Jesus will surely cover.” Cue me sobbing in pure awe of how good my God is and how much he loves me that all my feelings and doubts and fears are covered with the blood of Jesus! Can I get a good Amen?! As Pastor Chris from Church of the Highlands says.

I’m still healing and walking through the process to fully forgive everything that I still haven’t unpacked but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I do forgive them. I forgive them in all their brokenness and know that my God is great and will provide and make way no matter what happens. This doesn’t mean I still don’t get caught up in an ill intended daydream or two but I’m not perfect and God doesn’t expect me to be but I’m so much better than I was. I hope this helped someone and even if this didn’t help anyone at all I can always use it as a reminder for myself.