Forgiving those that hurt you is not for the weak.
Oh my God, I just wanna do the whole Catholic rest in peace thing.
It’s just not for the weak. It is for every single believer.
We have talked about this on You, Me, and Jesus, but I wanna bring it up again because stuff has happened.
And so today, we talk about forgiving those who hurt you.
I love having an opportunity for me to just share myself, my faith, my journey with God, and all the things, and for us to be able to connect and also just share any kind of wisdom or revelation that God is giving me.
So let’s get into it and I’m gonna just try to do as much as I can because it’s just a lot to go along with this.
So the first thing is I went to Google and checked what the Bible says about forgiveness.
I know what it says, but I just wanna read it:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”
“That’s what somebody said forgiveness according to the Bible is correctly understood as God’s promises as God’s promise not to count our sins against us”
And then I tried to see what Google said about, How Jesus wants us to forgive others.
“The Bible teaches us that unselfish love is the basis for true forgiveness since it keeps no record of wrong.”
“Forgiving others means letting go of resentment and giving up any claim to be compensated for the hurt or loss” – 1st Corinthians 13:5
I do like the last one.
So when I think about what the bible says about forgiveness. He says we are to forgive just as God forgives us.
It’s like we are invited to forgive since he’s gonna forgive us.
This is what he does, we repent and he’s also like, “So we do the same, so I forgive you and you forgive this situation”
There is no condition on who we are supposed to forgive or an act that are supposed to forgive. It’s just not listed in the Bible.
When I think about some of the craziest things that people have done that hurt others, I am just like, “Wow”
It reminds me of someone that has, I don’t want to say the word, but unalived someone, causing someone not to be on this earth anymore and their family is still alive.
And it’s like, here’s this person who unalived their friend or family member, and they’re still alive.
And then God invites us to forgive those people. And for me, when I think about it, “that feels like the ultimate because this person is no longer here because of what you chose to do”
But the Bible is very clear, we are to forgive, period, and that’s hard.
There is nothing fun about that.
There is nothing easy about that, but it is what’s asked of God.
So, how do you do it?
I am not the Saint when it comes to forgiveness.
And I don’t have it all together.
I don’t have forgiveness down the path.
I am not the one who says “We’re gonna teach a sermon on forgiveness” They don’t bring me up for that.
They just don’t, but don’t bring me up for that.
But I have been on this journey of learning how to forgive people who have hurt me.
Here is what I am learning:
First, when a person hurts us, willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly, outside of that person, we are hurting because we got hurt by that person.
And what I have come to learn is when I don’t forgive that person, whether I say to them or not that I forgive them.
If I don’t forgive them, between me and God and it starts to eat away at me because I have this thing on the inside of me, I am upset and I am looking for whether it’s retribution.
It starts to eat away at me because I have this thing on the inside of me, I am upset and I looking for whether it’s retribution or revenge.
And If I haven’t released them then that means it’s still inside of me.
I feel like anything that is unhealthy, that is anger, resentment, or revenge that’s brewing, has the potential of doing damage in so many types of ways, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, all the things.
And so the first thing is recognizing that, “Okay, this hurts, this person hurt me, and I am upset. I want revenge. I want retribution. I want X, Y, and Z.”
I want this to happen to them, all this stuff
And recognizing what I am like, “I don’t want to forgive them. I will not forget how all those feelings are”
Because if we don’t allow ourselves to feel those feelings, then we’re not admitting how we’re feeling.
I’ll give you an example.
I remember after my ex-husband was unfaithful, I went immediately into forgiveness mode, because I was just like, “If I don’t forgive him, it’s gonna eat me alive”
And so I just went into that mode of forgiveness. I was angry but I just went into that mode of forgiveness because I knew the power of what holding on to it was gonna do for me.
What I did not know was that I was not admitting how I was feeling. Like all the things in between, forgiveness was hurting me as well.
So what I realized is that one of the powerful ways to go through this process is to go, “Here is exactly how I feel, whatever process it takes, that long or whatever. And like getting it all out of how I’m feeling”
Journaling for me is good.
And then talking to God out loud about it is really good.
And getting all that stuff out.
It took me a couple of years before I realized that I needed to do that because I was just like, “When is it forgiveness mode?”
And so what I realized is that I needed to do the other one first, it’s like acknowledging all of that, because all that was eating away at me, and I needed to get it out of me.
And so once I got it out, then it was like, “Okay, then I could cry about the fact that the effects that this offense did to me, to my life and all that type of stuff”
Then it was, “God, help me to forgive them. What does it look like to forgive him?
I wanted to fix it because I wanted my marriage.
I was like, “Okay, if he’s gonna apologize, I need to be able to be ready for all of that”
That’s the first thing, it’s being truly honest about how you’re feeling, all the things, as long as that takes.
And then, the second thing is pouring that out to God.
Pouring that out to God, the one that can comfort you.
I love my friends, I love my family, I love being able to vent to them and all that, but nothing they said comforted me during that time.
Nothing.
They could try, but it wasn’t as comforting as when it was like, “God I need you to come alongside me and comfort me”
Because He comforts me in a different way than my best friend or my mom, dad, cousin, friend, or else could ever do for me.
And then the next thing is not necessarily going to that person.
Just because you’re choosing to forgive someone doesn’t mean you have to go to that person.
That doesn’t mean that.
If there’s an opportunity, like a conversation or whatever that’s gonna be had between the two of you all, then there’s that opportunity, but that isn’t always the case.
And so you don’t necessarily have to go and do that and have a conversation with them to forgive them.
Also, it is going to be giving yourself time to forgive them.
You’re venting it out, you’re talking to God about it, you’re inviting God to comfort you, and you are giving yourself time to forgive them.
So one of the things that I did was I wrote lines. My line was, “‘God, help me to forgive even if he never apologizes.'”
I would write that multiple times a day. “‘God, help me to forgive even if he never apologizes“‘.
Because he never did.
It’s been 10 years already, he never did.
And I did that because I knew that the only way for it to happen was that I needed strength.
I needed supernatural strength to forgive even if he never apologized.
So I went through that process of saying what I was feeling, inviting God to comfort me, and then going through the process of actually forgiving.
Then when it would come up again, I would be angry again then I would allow myself to go through that process again.
Because I know sometimes we want it to be a one-and-done.
It is not a one-and-done.
Especially when you are very hurt or even when you’re hurt just a little bit.
It’s not always a one-and-done.
It’s a process and giving yourself to that process and allowing yourself to go through a process is extremely important because it’s mostly for you.
The last thing I want is to hear my ex’s name or to see him one day or whatever, you know what I mean?
I just want to be able to be okay.
I remember years later, I was on Facebook and an old Facebook memory came up and it was his picture. And for the longest time, I couldn’t handle it when those memories popped up.
It was just very triggering. And so one day it popped up and I said, “I don’t feel anything”
So I clicked on it, then I studied the photo and was like I don’t feel anything.
And then I saved the photo to my phone because I wanted to go back to it throughout the day or that week. And just keep going and seeing how I was feeling and I kept going. Then I don’t feel anything.
I think I may have one or two of those in my phone, not because I’m trying to relive the memories that he and I had by no means but it’s more so being like, “Huh, well look at there. Look at how far I’ve come emotionally. Look at me now. Wow”
I connect that to all of what I just said. Being angry and letting myself feel the way and voicing it, talking to God and inviting him to comfort me, and then going through a process.
Like just going through a process. Because if we don’t allow ourselves to do that, we don’t forgive.
We harbor unforgiveness and it just eats away at us.
If it was an intimate relationship, then it affects the next relationship.
When there is broken trust, then it affects all the relationships with other people that you have to trust.
All these different things that we know or don’t know are happening when we don’t allow ourselves to go through this process.
I know I’ve talked about this a little bit before, but I want you to give yourself the gift of forgiveness.
Allow yourself to journal and be honest.
I wrote some mean things that I wanted to have happen to my ex-husband. I mean a lot of really bad things.
But it was because I hadn’t done that for a year and a half and God said, “Hey, tell me what you want to have happen to him.”
He asked me that. And I said, “Well, I’m not going to say it out loud because of the power of the tongue, but I will write it.”
And when I wrote it, that’s when I was broke.
I’m just telling you what God invited me to do.
I hope you enjoyed this article. And I hope you found value in it.
If you do, you can let me know. Just go into the comments and I would love to talk back to you.
Thanks so much for reading.