Forgiving What You Can't Forget Quotes

“My ability to heal cannot be conditional on them wanting my forgiveness but only on my willingness to give it.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“Hope is the melody of the future. Faith is dancing to that melody right now.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

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

“I am a soul who likes the concept of forgiveness . . . until I am a hurting soul who doesn’t.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“It is necessary for you not to let pain rewrite your memories. And it’s absolutely necessary not to let pain ruin your future.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

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

“You can’t fake yourself into being okay with what happened. But you can decide that the one who hurt you doesn’t get to decide what you do with your memories. Your life can be a graceful combination of beautiful and painful.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“Forgiveness releases to the Lord your need for them to be punished or corrected, giving it to the only One who can do this with right measures of justice and mercy.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“My ability to heal cannot depend on anyone’s choices but my own.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“At some point we must stop:
1. Replaying what happened over and over.
2. Taking what was actually terrible in the past and tricking ourselves into thinking it was better than it was.
3. Imagining the ways things should be so much that we can't acknowledge what is.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That's Beautiful Again

“Forgiveness is the weapon. Our choices moving forward are the battlefield. Moving on is the journey.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“Bitterness isn’t usually found most deeply in those whose hearts are hard but rather in those who are most tender. It’s not that they are cold; it’s that they’ve been made to feel unsafe.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“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. Being back in relationship with this person isn’t possible or safe. Furthermore, it’s not even reasonable for me to have a conversation with the person who hurt me. I’m still in the middle of a long, hard situation with no resolution yet. I’m afraid forgiveness will give them false hope that I want to reestablish the relationship, but I don’t. It’s easier to ignore this person altogether than to try and figure out boundaries so they don’t keep hurting me. What they did is unchangeable; therefore, forgiveness won’t help anything. The person who hurt me is no longer here. I can’t forgive someone I can’t talk to. I don’t think any good will come from forgiveness now. When your heart has been shattered and reshaped into something that doesn’t quite feel normal inside your own chest yet, forgiveness feels a bit unrealistic.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“We can’t live in an alternate reality and expect what’s right in front of us to get better.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“My broken perspective is not proof of His broken promises.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That's Beautiful Again

“As soon as sin was their choice, the cover of darkness was their preference.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That's Beautiful Again

“I only needed to bring my willingness to forgive, not the fullness of all my restored feelings.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That's Beautiful Again

“But weeping with them and rejoicing with them does not mean trying to take control of their out-of-control choices and behaviors. We can forgive them. But we cannot control them. And we should not enable them.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“Forgiveness is both a decision and a process. You make the decision to forgive the facts of what happened. But then you must also walk through the process of forgiveness for the impact those facts have had on you.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“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 need to learn from all of this. And then give me Your peace in place of my anger.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“Not forgiving someone isn’t teaching the other person a lesson, nor is it protecting you in any way. It’s making the choice to stay in pain. It’s ratcheting the already too-tight belt tighter and tighter with each remembrance. Undealt-with pain and a mind at peace cannot coexist.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”1”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“My counselor says, “Adults inform, children explain.” I will state my boundaries with compassion and clarity. But I will not negotiate excuses or navigate exceptions with lengthy explanations that wear me down emotionally.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“Relationships were reduced to attempts at managing what I feared about them rather than enjoying what I loved about them.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“Grief is devastating no matter how it comes. But when there’s a person or people whose choices struck the match igniting the grief? It’s only natural to clench your jaw when you think of what happened.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

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

“Unresolved pain triggers unrestrained chaos.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

“It's necessary for you to not let pain rewrite your memories, and it's absolutely necessary not to let pain ruin your future.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That's Beautiful Again

“What we look for is what we will see, what we see determines our perspective, and our perspective determines our reality.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That's Beautiful Again