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

When I was saying God wasn’t answering my prayers, what I was really saying was God wasn’t doing what I wanted Him to do. I know God is in control. But the more I can’t understand what I see, the more I want to take back control for myself. We try to control what we don’t trust. I think I’ve just wrongly assigned to God hurt caused by people. When what I’m praying for is the only evidence I’m using to determine how involved God is or how faithful God is, it’s no wonder I get so disillusioned. It’s no wonder I cry and ask why and feel so very betrayed at times.

Either way, each day was God’s answered prayer. And though I very rarely got the loaves of bread I kept looking for, I was living a slow-working miracle I just couldn’t see. I now realize God doesn’t need to be forgiven. He hasn’t wronged me. He hasn’t sinned.

I was just looking at the hardest place and thinking it was the end. I missed something so important. Something I now see. What things look like from an earthly perspective God sees differently. I kept seeing what I’d lost, the damage, the hurt, the pain. I was blinded to the fact that I don’t know all there is, what’s really best and what is not. And though the days were awful, I was not without God.

God does some of His best work in the unseen.

Every day He was providing for me. Every day He was there. And whether I could recognize it or not, I was living in answered prayers. So today I look at what’s right in front of me through what I know to be true about God. This is a gift. This can be used for good. This is somehow part of a much bigger story. And I can trust Him to also make it beautiful. Now, I just have to keep making the choice to look for the beautiful.

Bitterness wears the disguises of other chaotic emotions that are harder to attribute to the original source of hurt.

Bitterness Is a Bad Deal That Makes Big Promises

Me not forgiving the people who hurt me was agreeing to bring the hurt they caused into every present-day situation I was in—hurting me over and over and over again. Holding on to this hurt wasn’t diminishing my pain. It was multiplying it. And it was manipulating me to become someone I didn’t want to be. So, instead of making anything right, it was just making everything even more wrong—me, them, the whole situation. The enemy of our soul loves the way bitterness blocks healing for us and prevents the goodness of God from being put on display.

Humanity without humility makes true forgiveness impossible. Humanity rises up and demands that I be declared the right one, the good one, the victimized one. But never has that made anything better for me; it’s only embittered me. Humility bows low and claims the greatest victory a human can ever grasp: God’s prize of peace.

I’ve never really related to the story of the prodigal son. I’m not really rebellious or prone to wasteful spending. But there are two brothers in the story, and after rereading it, I really wish it was called “the prodigal sons.” Both were rebellious. One was just more obvious than the other. One was wayward. The other resentful. But it was the one with resentment who wound up being most resistant to the father in the end. He was so consumed with what his brother had taken, he couldn’t see the bigger picture of what the father was doing.

“My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:28–32) Humanity without humility makes true forgiveness impossible.

As I notice that the father reminds the brother, “everything I have is yours,” I hear God reminding me, “Turn to me. Trust me. Entrust this whole situation to me. I am doing a bigger work than you know. You don’t really want revenge. You want healing. You don’t really want more chaos. You want peace. You don’t really want them to suffer. You just don’t want to be hurt again.”

Bitterness is a bad deal that makes big promises on the front end but delivers nothing you really want on the back end. Only God has what I really want. Turning my heart over to bitterness is turning away from God. So I bow low. . . . not because I want to. Because I need to.

“God, I give this situation to You. I release my evidence of all the reasons they were so wrong. I release my need to see this person punished. I release my need for an apology. I release my need for this to feel fair. I release my need for You to declare me right and them wrong. Show me what I nee...

Romans 12:18 teaches, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (ESV).

As he was converting people to the gospel, one of those disruptions was that Paul was calling them away from participating in anything that had to do with idols. In Acts 19:26, Paul is quoted as saying, “gods made with hands are not gods” (ESV). The silversmith, Demetrius, was highly upset because the sale of these idols brought in a lot of money. Both the loss of income and the discrediting of a god they were used to worshipping infuriated those people profiting from this religious system. So they rioted against Paul and drove him out of the city.

Hebrews 12:14–15 reminds us, “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” This defilement transfer contaminates those closest to us. It’s not just personal . . . it’s corporate. It never just impacts me.

Now, I’m realizing the antithesis of peace isn’t chaos. It’s selfishness. Mine and theirs. Self-care is good. Self-centeredness is not. The human heart is so very prone to focus on selfish desires to the expense of others. But since I can only change me, I’ll be honest as I look at my own propensities toward selfishness. And the very best way for me to uninvite selfishness is in the humility of forgiveness. Peace is the evidence of a life of forgiveness.

So, is there ever a place for vindication? Justice? Fairness? Keep reading the verses of Romans 12. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:19–21 ESV)

Living the Practice of Forgiveness Every Day

Use it as an opportunity to let the pain drive you to the new healing habits and perspectives we’ve been discovering together in this book. •Have one better thought. •Have one better reaction. •Have one better way to process. •Have one better conversation. •Have one boundary you lovingly communicate and consistently keep. •Have one better choice not to reach for that substance to numb out. •Have one better heart pivot toward forgiveness instead of resentment. •Have one less day when you stay mad. •Have one less hour when you refuse grace.

In Matthew 6:9–15, Jesus teaches: “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”