How To Forgive Someone Who Hurt You Deeplyናሙና

How to Forgive

How exactly do we forgive? Do we somehow push the delete button in our minds, magically erasing the anger and pain we feel? Do we pretend our feelings don’t even exist or don’t matter? If any of these were true, there would be no way that any of us could truly forgive!

Assessing the emotional damage is important. Emotions themselves are not sin (Eph. 4:26). What events occurred? How did those events make you feel? Then, once we have assessed the damage, we simply make the choice to forgive the offender, releasing them from anything they owe us. Finally, we might thank God for the privilege of forgiving them and ask him to remind us of the decision we made. So once you’ve found a quiet place where you can be alone with God, here’s what to do.

Assess the damage: It hurt me when he/ she. . . . It made me feel (embarrassed, abandoned, rejected, etc.) . . .

Choose to forgive and release the debt: But I choose, as an act of my will, because I am a forgiving person in Christ, to forgive him/ her and release him/ her from anything that he/ she owes me, even if he/ she does it again.

Remember your choice: Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, for the opportunity to forgive (name of offender). I ask you to remind me, in the moments I need it the most, of this decision I made today. (Note: Some people prefer to place an empty chair in front of them and imagine the offender sitting in it. Then they speak directly to the offender in the empty chair, saying, “It hurt me when. . . .”)

Did you notice that the forgiveness statement says “even if he/ she does it again”? Of course, this does not mean that we want it to happen again. Neither does it mean that what the person did to us was okay. It simply means that we are fully forgiving them with an unconditional release from anything they owe us, with no strings attached. This is the only real way to move forward and experience healing from past hurts inflicted by those around us.

(adapted from the book The Hurt & the Healer by Andrew Farley and Bart Millard)