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

This exercise doesn’t fix or change what happened. But it gives me something to do besides wallowing in the hurt of it all. I was able to stop wanting to overprocess what my friend had done and all the ways it hurt me and instead get back to just being with Art.

It used to be that kind of triggered emotion would have derailed our entire conversation. I would have wrongly attached to Art the feelings of hurt caused by my friend and gotten all entangled in chaos. Chances are, we would have both left the conversation hurt. He would have personalized my stirred-up emotions. I would have resented him for not being more understanding. We would have wasted so much energy playing right into the enemy’s plans to cause division between us. But now we know how to avoid that.

When I got so very hurt by my friend on top of being hurt by Art, if the full weight of the emotional impact would have hit me at once, it just might have killed me. I’m not being dramatic. My body was deeply affected by the emotional fallout. If you read my last book, you know I almost died during the worst season of all the trauma when my colon twisted and cut off the blood flow inside of me. I had to be rushed into emergency surgery to have most of my colon removed and spent weeks in the critical-care unit fighting for my life. The surgeon who operated on me later said that when he cut me open, the trauma was so severe it looked like I’d been hit by a bus. Most of us will never see the visible reality of what holding on to our pain, resentment, and unforgiveness looks like. But I’ve seen some of the pictures from my surgery. And I’m more convinced than ever, emotional trauma hits us with as much severity and impact as just about anything else.

I’m better able to discern what the feeling is and what to do with it. I have a series of questions that help me sort through it. For example, if a wave of sadness hits me when I see a picture from our hard season, I’ll try and sort through what is true and what is not true about this picture. I’ll give myself a few moments to grieve what was lost. I’ll watch for any feelings of fear this might stir up. Is this leftover fear from that season, or is there something I need to pay attention to for today? I’ll also gauge my sentiment toward this person on a scale from “Good” to “Neutral” to “Frustrated” to “Hurt” to “Angry” to “Wishing for retaliation.” I’ll discern if I need to process out loud with someone or just work through this in my own journal. I’ll then remember that the hurt they caused was most likely from hurt they carried. It doesn’t justify their actions, but it does help me have compassion for the hurt they have surely suffered. I don’t have to know any of the details of what happened in their past. I can just let that realization shift my thoughts from what they did to how they must have hurt. And in that compassion I find a commonality that we are both humans trying to find our way. We will talk more about the important role compassion and commonality play in the forgiveness process later in this book.

For now, I realize the hurt that passed through them to me is a more epic moment of opportunity than I ever realized. That hurt can pass through me and be unleashed on others. Or, it can be stopped by me, right here, right now. The world can become a little darker or a little brighter just by the choice I make in this moment.

So I bow my head and mentally pull out another 3×5 card and the red felt squares and cooperate with the forgiveness of the Lord. “I forgive this person for how their actions back then are still impacting me now. And whatever my feelings don’t yet allow for, the blood of Jesus will surely cover.” Another act of forgiveness means even more healing and clarity. Anot...

We all have a story. And then we all have a story we tell ourselves. Revisiting the past can be scary. But if we want to fully heal, we need to dig into our stories to understand what’s behind the curtain. Forgiveness isn’t just about what’s in front of us. Sometimes, a bigger part of the journey is uncovering what is informing us from long ago. Woven throughout our experiences is a connecting thread that pulls the beliefs we formed from our past into the very present moments of today.

Forgiveness isn’t just about what’s in front of us. Sometimes, a bigger part of the journey is uncovering what is informing us from long ago.

It was good for my mom to teach us this rhythm of being kind and making up in the midst of silly girlhood selfishness. But it engrained something deep inside of me that didn’t mature past childhood. So my belief system around relationship complications and forgiveness contained expectations that didn’t keep playing out quite so easily as I got older. I thought this is the way it should always work: •Someone is clearly wrong. •Someone is clearly right. •A person in authority declares that what was done must be addressed. •The one in the wrong is scolded. •The one in the wrong says they are sorry. •The person in authority instructs that the hurtful action must not be continued. •The person who was wronged or hurt feels secure that if this action is ever repeated, there will be consequences for the offender. •In this atmosphere of clear justice, the person hurt forgives. •Forgiveness then leads to reconciliation, and the relationship is good once again.

The greatest hell a human can experience here on earth is not suffering. It’s feeling like the suffering is pointless and it will never get any better.

For me, it was a system of thought that included several things. First, it instilled in me a clear idea of what I believe I should and shouldn’t do.

Second, it impacts what I believe about other people.

Third, it influences what I believe about myself. Fourth, what I believe about God. And lastly, what I believe about forgiveness and moving forward in healthy ways.

The things marking us from yesterday are still part of the making of us today.

Love is a thing of depth. When forced to stay on the surface, it flounders about like a fish out of water. A fish can’t live on the surface, because it can’t breathe. It breathes oxygen but not from the surface air. Fish pull water through their gills, which dissolve the oxygen from the water and dispense it into their bodies. If they don’t get below the surface, they will be starved of what gives them life. Love is a bit like that.

Love needs depth to live. Love needs honesty to grow. Love needs trust to survive. When starved of depth, it flounders. When deprived of honesty, it shrivels. And when trust is broken, love is paralyzed.

I’ve heard it said that people fall in love. I wish the expression was more like, “We found love, and then we chose it over and over together.” I much prefer that to falling.

Vulnerability. We have to be vulnerable to look at the realities of our life and make some of the connections we’re talking about. But we also gain even more vulnerability as a result of increased self-awareness. It becomes hard to pretend with others when we can no longer pretend with ourselves. And, sister, if that’s one of the only connections and corrections we make in these chapters, it was well worth the work.

The one who pretends will never be the one who realizes how desperately they need to be forgiven. So forgiving others will always seem more like another thing they have to do rather than a freeing process they can participate in. In our story, I had to make the connection that Art and I both needed grace. We both needed healing. We both needed forgiveness. And though it’s been excruciatingly painful to learn this kind of vulnerability, it’s been the most life-giving part of our healing. Isn’t it strange that sometimes it’s the very thing we fear the most that winds up paving a road to freedom?

And what if I could do this without fearing rejection, because I’m already utterly convinced that I’m accepted and acceptable?

And here’s where I made another connection. Art was quietly keeping secrets because he didn’t feel acceptable. I was always pushing for conversations he didn’t know how to have, because I was so desperate to hear words other men never said to me. I wanted to know I was accepted. Acceptable and accepted were both feelings we wanted, but the way we went about pursuing those tore us apart instead of bringing us together. The secret to having healthy vulnerability doesn’t start with me feeling safe with Art. Safety is important, for sure. But it doesn’t start with others. It has so much more to do with me being safe with me. And Art being safe with Art. It was only when my most honest opinion of myself was also an honoring opinion of myself that I could stand vulnerable before Art without fear. Without walls of pretension. Or curtains that were only opened when we performed. Without little lies to cover things we couldn’t bear to be revealed . . . without piercing judgments of each other’s frailties.

Art had to believe he was acceptable. I had to believe I was accepted. These weren’t feelings to find inside our relationship. These were truths to be lived out because God had already helped us believe them as individuals first. Then, in moments of vulnerabili...

I will not reduce you to being a sum total of your struggles. I will speak life by reminding you who you really are in Christ.”

The secret is, we can help each other remember who we really are. But we can’t fix each other. We can’t control each other. We can’t keep each other healthy. We can speak life. We can be vulnerable. We can pray. We can battle the enemy. We can lift up all concerns to the Lord, and we can navigate concerns with each other. But we must not let the destructive force of shame into any part of our relationship. It is returning to what God always intended relationships to be.

But chosen by God and then breathed on and touched by God, they became the only part of creation made in the image of God. They were nothing turned into the most glorious something. They were made to be a reflection of the image of God. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). These image bearers made an invisible God’s image visible. What made them glorious wasn’t how they started off as dust and bone, but who they were made by: God Himself. They accepted who they were based on, who they knew God to be. I see no evidence they were displeased in how they were made before the fall. They were both naked and felt no shame.

He’s more than what he’s done. He’s so much more than the mistakes he’s made. He’s the very breath of God—so very acceptable. And when I look at him like that, his real identity emerges. This doesn’t deny the issues we both still need to work on. But it does shift the foundation from shame to the hope we have in Christ. The affair, while it is a reality, is not his true identity. He’s a child of God whom I can forgive. I let this sit on me, and it started to soften my heart more and more.

But though it cost Adam some bone, God gave back something so much better than what was taken.

And maybe that’s the first lesson for what makes vulnerability so complicated. If we risk being open, we risk being hurt. We risk the other person taking something from us. And we know to fear this pain, because, unlike Adam and Eve, we’ve experienced this pain. So we pull back and we get bitter and we become more and more easily offended and less and less willing to be vulnerable.

There are other things taken that aren’t nearly as hard to process. Money stolen, rude comments given, or other things stripped away aren’t on the same level as the loss of people I’ve loved so deeply. It’s a different kind of pain, but it’s still a pain that can make me not want to risk being taken from again.

But what if, instead of fearing what might be taken from us, we decided that everything lost makes us more complete, not less? Not by the world’s economy. In this world, loss makes us grieve as it should. But this isn’t the whole story. At the very same time we grieve a loss, we gain more and more awareness of an eternal perspective. Grieving is such a deep work and a long process, it feels like we might not survive it. But eventually we do. And even though we still may never agree on this side of eternity that the trade the good God gave us is worth what we’ve lost, we hold on to hope by trusting God. Everything lost that we place in the hands of God isn’t a forever loss.

Martin Luther said, “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in Go...

But when I mentally place each and every loss in His hands, it can be redeemed.

The week we talked about all this, she saw these glorious displays of color in the sky as never before. Since she was having this experience while visiting a different state, she at first thought the skies were suddenly so magnificent to her because they were different in that part of the country. But another friend assured her that’s the way they looked in her hometown as well. And that’s when she saw that correcting the dots of her story helped her see beauty again. Expansive splendor and glory burst into flaming colors before her, and she saw it! She finally saw it. And I believe she’ll see it now for the rest of her life.

It’s not because her past changed. It’s because what she now believes is possible for her has changed. Now early mornings are not dismal, and the sky giving way to darkness isn’t dreadful. They are displays of glory and splendor and beauty she 100 percent has permission to enjoy. Her choice. My choice. Your choice.

If we become more self-aware of how we are processing our thoughts and perceptions and redirect those in more life-giving ways, then inside every loss, a more wise, empathetic, understanding, discerning, compassionate person of strength and humility has the potential to arise within us. So I walk back through my story and call her to arise. I developed beliefs about life, myself, other people, God, and forgiveness as a child. And those beliefs were often most deeply ingrained in me when I was hurt as a child. This is what formed my processing system through which my thoughts and experiences pass even to this day.

I think it’s time to revisit my belief system. I don’t want to forever process hard situations using perceptions formed by my most hurtful or traumatic seasons. This is a slow process and not one to rush, but let’s also not be afraid to start the healing process. And that begins with finding the connections.

Here are some things to consider as you look for the connections in your story: •Are there times of the day or seasons of the year that you should enjoy but you avoid? For example, with me, I have always loved October and November. Fall has always been such a special time of the year for me. But now I find myself bracing for these fall months, because it’s when a significant trauma hap...

Reclaiming is so much more empowering ...

Are there places you should enjoy, but you find yourself not wanting to go there? •Are there types of people you avoid or find yourself feeling especially anxious around? •Are there certain words or phrases that trigger more emotion than you feel they should? •Are there life events that when the m...

The experiences I have affect the perceptions I form. The perceptions I form eventually become the beliefs I carry. The beliefs I carry determine what I see. My eyes can only see what’s really there—unless the perceptions informing my vision change what I believe I see.

Processing through all of this takes time. So much time. But the secret to my own processing was threefold: pain, acceptance, and perspective. The pain was me expressing everything that happened and how it made me feel. This is what I did in collecting the dots. Acceptance was acknowledging that the permanent ink is now dry on those pages of my story. I cannot change what happened. This is what I did in connecting the dots.

What do I now believe about the person who hurt me or people with whom I’m in a similar type relationship? •What do I now believe about myself? •What do I now believe about other people who witnessed or knew about what happened? •What do I now believe about the world at large because of this situation? •And what do I now believe about God as a result of this whole experience?

It was important for me to reconsider perceptions of what I’ve walked through and what I now believe is true about all those involved. But even more importantly, asking these questions about my beliefs helped me see what needed to be corrected so, as I move forward, I have healthier interpretations of what I see.

Do I cringe? Roll my eyes? Feel my pulse quicken? Clench my jaw? Let out a sigh? •Do I shake my head at the unfairness of good things happening to them? •Do I celebrate secretly when I hear they are having difficulties, with thoughts like, they finally got what’s coming to them? •Do I dream of the moment when I get to present all my proof and hear them finally admit what they did was wrong? •When I talk to other people about this story, am I quick to try and convince others how wronged I was, hoping to elicit a satisfyingly sympathetic reaction from them toward me and some kind of statement affirming how awful my offender’s actions really were? •If they are still a regular part of my life, am I always expecting the worst from them? •Am I easily offended, put off, aggravated, and annoyed by them or people who remind me of them?

OR •Do I acknowledge what was hard but feel a sense of calm and peace? •Can I sincerely pray for them when they’re facing difficult things? •Can I manage my emotions when good things happen to them? •Am I eager to share a helpful perspective with others facing a similar situation, hoping to help them get to a better place? •Can I look for what is good in other people? •Do I look for life lessons and collect those instead of grudges? •What hurt might my offender have suffered that would have led them to do what they did? Can I have compassion for the offender’s brokenness? •Can I be authentically kind to this person who was unkind to me, even with the boundaries I may need to draw?

How might I look at this differently? •Is there a redeeming part of this story I can focus on? •What good could come about if I decide to forgive and not keep dwelling on all the ways I was hurt? •Are there positive qualities about myself that can emerge if I choose to move forward without holding on to grudges?

God never wastes our suffering. As Romans 5:3–5 reminds us, “We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

What would a healthy version of me be empowered to do from here? •How can this hurt make me better, not worse? •What might God be giving or revealing to me through this that I couldn’t have received before?

One thing I kept noticing as I did this exercise was my tendency to hang on to the facts of how I was hurt more than the perspectives I was learning. As unhealthy feelings and thoughts would surface in my journal that looked more like proof than perspective, I would •be honest with the feelings I was having; •be brave enough to stop the accompanying runaway thoughts, even if I had to say that out loud; •check possible distortions with other trusted friends, my counselor, and with the Word of God; •find a Scripture verse that can speak truth to some part of the memory and apply God’s Word to my thinking; and •process through it until I could find a more healed way of looking at and telling my story.

Like I’ve already said, this isn’t something you can just whiz through in a couple of hours or even a couple of days. Mark this chapter and determine to make it something you return to over and over for as long as you need. It took time to get to this place. It will take time to heal and find these healthy perspectives. None of this could be rushed for me, and none of it should be rushed for you. We need to feel what we feel. We need to think through what we need to think through. We need to get it all out and sort it all out. And, most of all, we need to stay put and be present for it all. Here is what I challenged myself with throughout this process whenever I felt ready to return to old patterns and give up. I want you to read this next part aloud as a personal declaration: •I DON’T NEED TO RUN AWAY. What I’m looking for will never be found somewhere out there. •I DON’T NEED TO ISOLATE. Sometimes lies scream loudest when there are no other voices to help me call foul. •I DON’T NEED TO NUMB IT AWAY. I can’t numb my way to better. Never am I closer to healing than when my feelings are strong enough to motivate me to attend to them. Healing is letting the feeling point me all the way to the cause of an issue. And when it’s properly addressed, it gives way to hope, peace, and joy that will lead me on from here. •I DON’T NEED TO SILENCE MY JOURNALED WORDS. The words I’m writing are putting my heart on display. I can’t always see what’s inside my heart, but I can listen to wh...