More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
you can do is stare at the pictures that just popped up, taken just before everything changed, desperate to go back to that moment and warn your former self to redirect . . . change course . . . avoid . . . escape . . . turn . . . and maybe, maybe this wouldn’t have ever happened.
Staying here, blaming them, and forever defining your life by what they did will only increase the pain. Worse, it will keep projecting out onto others. The more our pain consumes us, the more it will control us. And sadly, it’s those who least deserve to be hurt whom our unresolved pain will hurt the most.
It is necessary for you not to let pain rewrite your memories. And it’s absolutely necessary not to let pain ruin your future.
But, in the end, I was the only one affected by it. I’m the only one who missed out. I’m the only one who stayed hungry. I’m the only one whose wrong actions were talked about that day. And then I’m the one who rode home in silence, knowing no one had been punished by my choices but me.
The ability to see beautiful again is what I want for you and for me. Forgiveness is the weapon. Our choices moving forward are the battlefield. Moving on is the journey. Being released from that heavy feeling is the reward. Regaining the possibility of trust and closeness is the sweet victory. And walking confidently with the Lord from hurt to healing is the freedom that awaits.
After all, grace gives us the assurance that it’s safe enough to soften our fearful hearts, but it is the truth that will set us free (John 8:32). Grace and truth are kept together throughout Scripture (John 1:14, 17). If I only offered you grace, I would be shortchanging you on what it truly takes to heal.
My first inclination is to do the very thing I’m so critical of them doing. I let my justifications for retaliation draw me in, and I make sure I hurt them the way they hurt me. And when sin is my choice, the cover of darkness is my preference.
But please never confuse redemption with reunion. Reunion, or reconciliation, requires two people who are willing to do the hard work to come back together. Redemption is just between you and God. God can redeem your life, even if damaged human relationships don’t come back together.
WHAT YOU GIVE UP: the right to demand that the one who hurt you pay you back or be made to suffer for what they’ve done. God will handle this. And even if you never see how God handles it, you know He will. WHAT YOU GET: the freedom to move on.
And you’ll see . . . those who cooperate most fully with forgiveness really are those who dance most freely in the beauty of redemption.
I fear the offense will be repeated. •Hanging on to a grudge gives me a sense of control in a situation that’s felt so unfair. •The pain I experienced altered my life, and yet no one has ever validated that what I went through was wrong. •Forgiveness feels like it trivializes, minimizes, or, worse yet, makes what happened no big deal. •I can’t possibly forgive when I still feel so hostile toward the one who hurt me. •I’m not ready to forgive. •I still feel hurt.
They haven’t apologized or even acknowledged that what they did was wrong.
The person who hurt me is no longer here. I can’t forgive someone I can’t talk to.
Forgiveness is a command. But it is not cruel. It is God’s divine mercy for human hearts that are so prone to turn hurt into hate.
At some point we must stop: •Replaying what happened over and over. •Taking what was actually terrible in the past and tricking ourselves into thinking it was better than it was.
Imagining the way things should be so much that we can’t acknowledge what is.
God will eventually make everything all right.
I’m mature enough to say, “It is what it is,” and get over it.
“Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”1
