Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

by Lysa TerKeurst

WHERE WAS GOD when this happened? And if He is all powerful, why didn’t He stop this? He could change this today . . . He could fix this right now . . . He could do a miracle . . . So, why doesn’t He? I made hundreds of suggestions to God about how He could fix all that was wrong while we were in our “tunnel of chaos” season. But God didn’t intervene like I kept thinking He would. I kept imagining all the ways God could stop all of this—the pain, the tragic destruction, the damage that kept compounding day by day. I prayed and prayed. Then I would get up from my prayers and watch in great expectation for glimmers of hope and small evidences of assurance. I kept setting up perfect scenarios for God to move. And then surely if I saw God do what I thought He should do—rescue and restore—then I would do what He was requiring me to do: forgive. I wouldn’t have said I was trying to make a deal with God . . . but I definitely thought we both had parts to play.