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Have you ever went through a painful situation and thought you worked through the pain and forgave the person but now every time you see them or talk to them you still feel all those yucky feelings you had always felt and don’t understand why?!
I feel like most of us did. In part one we talked a lot about why forgiveness is hard and how it is very misunderstood. Today I want to talk about how to ACTUALLY forgive, what that looks like, and how to get rid of those yucky feelings. Maybe you didn’t put a finger down. Maybe you have truly forgiven those who hurt you. But maybe what has actually happened is you are no longer angry at those people, however you still carry that pain around with you. You see, there are two different types of forgiveness. Surface level forgiveness and TRUE forgiveness.
Here are some examples of what surface level forgiveness looks like:
You are no longer mad at that person, but because of that pain you now don’t trust ANYONE. You now live in anxiety. You constantly isolate. You no longer talk about your feelings. You constantly question that person, or maybe most people, about their intentions. You question yourself about everything. You find yourself fearful of that pain happening again. You replay those memories over and over again. You may not hold that pain over that person’s head anymore but you do take it out on other relationships. Just to name a few things.
TRUE forgiveness feels like peace. It feels like freedom. You no longer live in fear of that pain or project it onto others. I mentioned this before but forgiveness does not mean that you have to have a relationship and it doesn’t mean you have to forget, but it does mean that you let go of it. You put it down. It no longer gets to control you or your life/ thoughts/ emotions. You no longer wear it as a shield. True forgiveness means you recognize that that situation only happened because of their own baggage and was not because of your character or who you are as a person.
The ONLY reason we carry pain with us as a shield is because there is a part of us that believes the lies that situation told us about ourselves and we are afraid that others will see it and that situation will happen again. Maybe we have said we forgive and that person no longer owes us anything. Maybe we even are able to have a relationship with them again and things feel ok. But that is just surface level forgiveness. You may have taken their face off of that pain but the next step is to put it down and keep walking.
But how? How do we do that? The same answer I keep giving for almost everything. We walk into healing. We tell Satan to get behind us and we CHOOSE to believe what God says about us. We refuse to believe those lies and ALLOW ourselves to stop taking everything personal. We allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we do what it takes to stay disciplined, and keep that understanding and awareness we’ve been talking about at the forefront of our mind. We PURPOSELY walk into healing daily.
Forgiveness is not something that just happens in one moment. It takes time to work through painful situations. However the part of forgiveness that does not take time, and can happen quickly, is getting rid of resentment. That is something that can go away the second you choose to recognize that what they did has nothing to do with you. You can be sad and need to heal without being angry. Righteous anger is the only anger that isn’t a coping reaction. Anger is a go to move for our limbic system to keep us safe. Think about it, when you are sad we usually think about the situation and the insecurities we feel about ourselves in that moment but when we are angry we redirect our thoughts onto all the things wrong with others and distract ourselves from thinking about what happened. This is not a healthy mindset. It is one thing to recognize that someone has things to work through, and it’s another to attack them with it, whether it is to them or in your mind. You also don’t want to pretend that you no longer are feeling emotions. If someone rejects you, that will ALWAYS be sad. If a parent didn’t meet a need or neglected you, that will ALWAYS be sad. Pretending that it isn’t is another indicator that you are suppressing it and still haven’t fully forgiven or healed from it. But sitting in sadness about it forever is also NOT the answer or healthy.
The happy medium is sadness mixed with understanding. Pain is not something you were meant to wear forever. It was meant to shape you and guide you. We understand as a child that when we touch something hot to not touch it again, but we don’t avoid ever going around things that are hot. We learn that we need to wear an oven mitt, or wait for it to cool down. Not avoid it forever. And when we did burn ourselves, we dealt with it by running it under cold water or putting lavender oil on it and then carried on with our life. We didn’t consume ourselves with it the rest of our life. Some burns hurt worse than others, but we didn’t let it define us. We didn’t say I must be weak because I felt pain. Right?!
When it comes to healing and forgiveness there are a few things that have been shown to drastically help:
First, Journaling or writing letters. The letters don’t always need to be seen by the person who hurt you but sometimes it is necessary that they do. Writing things down helps you to organize your thoughts and, most importantly, get it out of your head! Living in our heads will always make healing harder. And in those situations where you do read the letters to them, it helps you keep the conversation healthy and focused on the goal and purpose of the letter. But honestly, these are still more for you than they are for them.
Second, talking. But not just talking to talk. Talking towards resolution. Praying is probably the most important form of talking you could do and I highly recommend doing it out loud. If the conversation is just you replaying what happened over and over again, that’s not going to lead you to any type of healing or forgiveness. There is a time and place to understand why something happened, but ultimately the goal is to find truth and resolve. This gives you the opportunity to feel heard and seen but also keeps you accountable and disciplined with your mindset. The key is to make sure you are talking to someone who has this same understanding. Trying to talk to someone who doesn’t can take you backwards, keep you stuck, or make you feel alone in your pain. And we don’t want any of those! If you don’t know anyone to talk to like this, a therapist would be great but make sure they keep you focused on that resolution. Sometimes there are therapists that just let you talk and stay stuck. So be aware of that as well! Leadership from a church is also a great option. And if any of your pain or trauma comes from church, refer back to my blog about church hurt (“your pain does not define you”).
And third, learning. Get yourself involved in things that will help you continue to understand why you do what you do and why others do what they do. This could be from counseling courses like Genesis, listening to podcasts or reading blogs like this one, books, devotionals, classes, sermons, etc. Anything that focuses on shifting your mindset. You may still be in your head, but it’s in a more constructive way that will help with the healing process.
When you do these steps often, you will find it SO much easier to forgive and to feel peace! It is SO much easier to put down that pain and no longer let it affect our beliefs. When we stop fearing the pain and believing the lies of the enemy and allow ourselves to look for God’s truth and lean into His love, we can experience freedom. And I am here to tell you that it’s the most amazing feeling EVER. You may still have moments of weakness, in fact satan will defiantly be doing everything he can to keep you stuck, but when you are focused on TRUTH you won’t stay there. God will always win when you put your pain in his hands and out of your own. Ultimately what you experience is up to you.
This is how you TRULY forgive.
As always, reach out if you need any direction or someone to talk to! I pray this stirs in you this week and produces peace in your heart/mind. I pray you make that decision to put down that pain and seek out God’s truth for your life! I hope you have the best week ever! See ya next week!
