Growing Beyond Your Painful Past: Part One

Introduction and Chapters One - Five are below


Introduction:
Over the years as I've been doing counseling, I've come to discover that there's often a common theme that runs through the counseling session.  Even when doing marriage counseling, where there's two individuals who want help with their relationship, that theme still shows up.  The theme is simply this...many people have been hurt, whether intentionally or unintentionally, by people in their lives, and it's this hurt, the emotional baggage, or scars,  the lessons they learned while growing up, their acting out on what they believe to be true about life and themselves, that is often at the root of their difficulties in life.

My hope is that I will be able to help you see where you may be stuck, or to understand why you react the way you do, why you don't feel quite "normal".  We'll cover several topics as we go along.  I'll try to not only give you insight into why you may be acting the way you are or feel the way you do about life, but will endeavor to give you the tools and practical steps to help you move closer to living a happier, more fulfilled life... but more importantly, you'll be able and motivated to reach out and grab hold of what God has planned for your life and that it will cause you to go deeper with God.

Chapter One:  Can things really change?

I want you to know that things CAN change for you.  I don't know what each of you reading this has gone through,  but quite a few of my clients had something in their past that was strongly affecting them.   Those who had been hurt often reacted by becoming defensive, not allowing anyone to get close to them.  They believed this was the only way they could protect themselves from future harm... by building a wall around themselves that was impenetrable.  Yet the inborn desire and need that we all have for human companionship tore at them.  Even if they did want to change, they did not know where to start.  They felt hopeless.  

The hope that their lives could be different seemed too good to be true.  Hope is defined as “the belief that one’s desires may be obtained”; it is an expectation of receiving something. Hope is an integral part of our being.  Without hope we experience discouragement, despair and even depression.   One of the ways a person protects himself is by not looking forward to anything, always expecting the worst . . . if something does go right, it's a nice surprise, but if it doesn't, it just reinforces his pessimistic and guarded outlook on life.  Proverbs 13:12 reads “Hope deferred  makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” 

The story of Abraham is about  an old man and old woman who were promised by God that they would have a son and their descendants would be as grains of sand in the desert.  It was into this lineage that Jesus was eventually born.  Scripture tells what Abraham’s attitude was when he was told he would be a father . . . “against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…”.  Abraham tenaciously held on to hope, regardless of what his circumstances looked like.  He knew that physically he and his wife could not father a child, but he knew that with God’s intervention there was no doubt it could and would happen.  He looked not at his circumstances but at the one who could bring it to pass. 

Hope gives us the strength and endurance that we need to persevere, especially in the face of adversity.  Allow this spark of hope to encourage you and give you the strength to press on.   First Thessalonians 1:3 refers to endurance being inspired by the hope that we have in our Lord Jesus Christ; if our hope is in Christ, we KNOW that anything is possible! At times doubt and hopelessness will do their best to overpower you, but  hold on to Jeremiah 29: 11-14 with every ounce of strength you have.  It reads:

 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you HOPE and a future.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.”

 I know that working through your issues is not going to be easy.  More than anything, He wants to restore hope to you and bring you out of captivity.

Ch. Two:  Identifying and getting beyond abuse:

Unfortunately, one of the most common things I noticed with my clients was that many of them had been victims of some type of abuse.  All of us can probably think of someone we have known that was a victim of physical abuse, and we have certainly heard about it a lot on TV or the Internet.  While physical abuse is more openly discussed, there is another type of abuse that we do not hear much about – verbal abuse, which can also be considered as emotional abuse. Verbal abuse can come in many forms and the effects are often invisible.  Verbal abuse can be those phrases you heard as a child…“Can’t you do anything right?. . . You’re stupid  . . .You’ll never amount to anything”.  It can be ongoing criticism from a family member or a critical spouse.  It can even be the way we talk to ourselves, that inner dialogue that goes on in our mind, criticizing and belittling ourselves.

You may not realize it, but words have the potential to  be abusive and can result in actual emotional damage.  The Bible indicates that reckless words pierce like a sword (Proverbs 12:18).  Many times the damage is unintentional.  Comments are made haphazardly, maybe only as a joke, but they still sting.  Verbal abuse may even accompany  physical abuse.  Physical abuse is easier to notice, but verbal abuse can be more damaging  if it is ongoing.  Verbal abuse degrades a person by robbing them of their self-esteem.  It causes emotional damage because the person may even begin to reject their value as a person. Where physical abuse affects the body, verbal abuse can damage one’s very soul and can cause a person to isolate themselves and feel rejected…it can even create feelings of worthlessness and having been exploited.

A person can usually tell when they have been the victim of some type of  physical abuse, as they often have outward bruises, cuts or scars, but many do not realize how much  verbal abuse has effected them. Once you begin to really think about how you were talked to, or treated, it often begins to help a person better understand why they view life the way they do...why they have such low self-esteem, or even why they feel so hopeless about life in general.  Simple words, spoken in the wrong tone of voice, or in a belittling or hurtful manner, can strongly affect a person.  Some clients have told me that they were told why they were being treated in such a manner...“it’s for your own good”.   Words can build us up or they can be used  to tear someone down.  Unfortunately, many of my clients had been torn down by words, rather than encouraged by them. 

But, it's not just the actual words that affect people, it's the rejection that often accompanies it, the sense of not being wanted.  Some react to being treated this way by becoming  a loner as they find it easier, and less painful, to stay by themselves, out of everyone’s way.  Others do the opposite and try to be the life of the party, or to surround themselves with as many friends as they can as they don't like to be alone.  They may even go to the extreme of needing to be needed and needing unhealthy amounts of reassurance to make up for their feelings of low self.  Either extreme is not healthy, but it's what they do to help them cope.

  When we have experienced frequent rejection,  we usually begin to reject who we are as a person.  We may begin to hate ourselves and gradually turn our backs on who we really are, and pursue a false identity that we hope will get us the love or attention that we crave.  We can become like a chameleon, changing to fit whoever we are around and whatever situation in which we find ourselves.  Some people live double lives...being one person at work and living a completely different life at night.  It's all about the acceptance that we're trying to receive from others and we do whatever it takes to feel good about ourselves.  I've had clients that thought that if they were different, and not themselves, then  they would finally feel good about themselves.   But it all turns out to be smoke and mirrors because the rejection has taken its toll and often manifests itself through feelings of hopelessness,  grief/sorrow (you may notice yourself sighing a lot),  an inability to trust, crying spells, and even depression/anxiety.

 These feelings of grief and depression can be like the proverbial monkey on your back.  At times you may feel that you'll  never get any better and all you can hope for is to struggle through life.  Heaviness and depression envelop you.  One of my clients said she was so desperate for relief that she cried out to God, begging Him for help.  The very next day she read in Proverbs 15:13: “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance; but by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken.”

 She said she sure felt like her spirit was broken!  The Hebrew word translated “broken” is nake.  Nake  is elsewhere translated “smitten” or “wounded”. The Hebrew word denotes a painful sorrow.  This sorrow may be described as heartache, grief, anguish, misery, heaviness, despair, hurt, suffering or torment.  Such emotions are indicative of a wounded spirit.  Her heart ached and whenever she would cry (which she did a lot of the time), she said it was overwhelming.  She said she felt as if she would lose her mind if she let herself  feel what was going on inside of her, so she would shut down her feelings and distract herself by doing something else.  I cautioned her that while this may help in the short term, at some point she was going to have to deal with all that pent up hurt and anger.  She told me that she'd felt utterly alone and helpless... …until the Lord reached out His hand and offered her healing and hope.

God began by showing her that He does care and that He is close to the brokenhearted.  He impressed upon her to read Psalms 34:18, which says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those are crushed in spirit.”  That Scripture goes on to say that God is not only close to the brokenhearted, but that He can heal the brokenhearted.   As recorded  in Psalms 147:3, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”  God is also our comforter. Corinthians 1: 3,4 reads,“Bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions.”   In addition, God is our defender and deliverer.“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, who abides in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress; My God, in whom I trust.’  For He will deliver you…” (Psalm 91:1-3). 

It was obvious to me that her broken heartedness was the result of inner wounding, and the Lord wanted more than anything to heal her.   I have to admit she had her doubts as to whether God could truly help her.  After all, she had been through so much and God seemed so removed from everything.  What had He ever had to go through?  It was then that the realization came to her - -  if anyone can relate to being hurt and rejected, it certainly is Jesus!  His very birth was questioned and His mother’s reputation was slandered.  He was born in poverty.  His race was ostracized and His hometown ridiculed.  His father reportedly died when He was young, and in, His later years, Jesus appeared homeless as he traveled.  He was misunderstood in His ministry and abandoned in death.  He did all this for you and me.  She told me later that when she questioned God as to “why” He had allowed Jesus to go through all this, He told her that Jesus did it in order to identify with all of us in our weaknesses.    What love!  What compassion!  Hebrews 4:15,16 reminds us that,“We have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet was without sin.  Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  

 Like so many of us, she was ashamed of having ever doubted that Jesus could identify with what she had experienced.  She knew that if anyone could help her,  it was Him. After she had some initial understanding of what she had been through growing up and that Jesus wanted to help her, I helped her take the next step.  I helped her to recognize that she had to want to be free from the hurt. I read her  Philippians 3:13,“…forgetting what is behind [she had to want her past to be behind her, for it to no longer have a hold on her], and straining toward what is ahead [shewould have to do her part] .".  

She needed to be willing to allow the Lord to do whatever it was He wanted to do. Part of her  wanted to hang on to the hurt, as it not only justified her  being angry at those who had hurt her , but reinforced the feelings of self pity that she often had.  She was very afraid  that if she opened up the cork on her emotions, it would be overwhelming.  She cried a lot.  Later on she told me she never knew she had so many tears in her!  

 Over the next few months as she prayed, He slowly replaced her tears and heartache with His love, and she said she could feel herself getting healed, a little at a time.  I knew it would have to be a little at a time because there was so much damage  that she could not have handled it all at once.  And, God knew that.  He was always a gentleman, gently prodding her to go a little deeper, while reassuring her that He would be right there with her.  The process was very hard but I knew that if she held on to the hurt any longer, it would only continue to produce inner turmoil and torment.

Is there abuse or rejection in your past?  Have you been the victim of a broken spirit? What kind of childhood memories do you have?  One of the choices we make is how we deal with those memories.  If they are happy memories, we will embrace them and remember them fondly.  If they are unhappy  or sad ones, that is a different story.  Some try to forget them or ignore them, only to have them lay dormant and resurface unexpectedly. Ask the Lord today to come in and begin healing you of your hurts.  He is the only one who can heal you.  It may not be easy, and you may cry a lot as she did, but it is freeing.  God is a gentleman and He will not ask you to work through anymore than He knows you can handle at a time.  And, He will do it a little at a time, step by step.

 

Chapter Three:  Your tendency towards self-criticism:

(Sorry about the change in font size...computer doesn't want to cooperate lately!)

As I mentioned previously,  the abuse you've received can affect the way you think about yourself.  It can be the way you talk to yourself, those thoughts that go through your mind, and some people criticize and belittle themselves.  I'd like us to look closer at "self-criticism", as abuse victims tend to be very critical of themselves, sometimes  being harder on themselves than on the one who actually abused them!   They may tell themselves such things as "I should have known better...what an idiot I was", or "I deserved it, it must have been something I said or did...it was my own fault".  What happens as a result of this type of thinking is that you begin to direct the fault at yourself rather than the one who was really to blame.  

Victims of abuse often experience low self-esteem, guilt and a feelings of  low self-worth.  Their ability to evaluate themselves objectively drops.  They may experience feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt.  They may find themselves misinterpreting trivial day-to-day events as evidence of their lack of worth and treat themselves badly. 

Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the cycle of self-criticism.  It starts off with feeling down or depressed, and you begin to be self-critical.  You may feel like you've made some bad mistakes, or even feel that you're unlovable and nobody will every like you, or that the abuse was really your own fault.   You begin to doubt how you'll do out in the world and that doubt can lead to despair, even to the point of paralysis where you don't want to do anything at all.  And when you do venture out, at the first signs of criticism (real or imagined), you quickly agree with it because it's reinforcing what you already think of yourself.  You can then react one of two ways:  you  feel so bad about how others think about you that you go overboard trying to get their approval or recognition, or you use it as fuel to reinforce your bad feelings about yourself, and you withdraw and stay away from others.

Do you restrict your life because you don't want to subject yourself to a possible painful experience that confirms how bad you think you are?  Please remember that there's a difference between recognizing your limitations (we are all created differently with different talents and skills...we're also all born with different personalities, some more outgoing than others), and degrading yourself.  Degrading yourself, or looking down on yourself because you can't be like others only leads to low self-esteem and oftentimes adds to your already self-critical nature.

When a person comes in to see me for counseling and I notice that he tends to be very self-critical of himself, it often makes me wonder what's behind it.  Does he want to punish himself for some reason?  Why does he dislike himself and have such lack of compassion for himself that he treats himself this way?  I listen to how he speaks about himself, and sadly it oftentimes turns out that he will speak in negative ways about himself, treating himself more harshly than is appropriate.  Remember, there is a difference between objectively criticizing your behavior so you can correct it, and being overly harsh, and basically beating yourself up. 

It seems that many clients who struggle with self-criticism have some degree of self-contempt,  even to the extreme of self hatred.  Their feelings of self-hatred can turn into rage and lack of self-compassion, which plays out in having little interest in helping one's self.  The ultimate desire is to punish one's self, not self-improvement.  Overcoming self-criticism for things you've done in the past, or think you've done in the past, can be very hard to overcome.  It can lead to an unwillingness or inability to forgive yourself.  

There are many reasons we can become self-critical.  For some, it's so they don't forget past mistakes and repeat them. For others it's a way to protect themselves from danger or getting let down again.  It can be a way one tries to atone for past sins or wrongs they have done, or think they've done.  Sometimes, if one is a perfectionist, it's a way to keep them striving towards that unrealistic goal of being perfect.  Those who have anger may turn it inwards as it seems safer to express it that way.  Then there's those who use it as a means to get sympathy and reassurance from others, or as a way to reduce demands or expectations from others as they may either want to be left alone or are frightened of being expected to do too much. Unfortunately, with those who have been abused in some manner, self-criticism is usually used as a way to either punish themselves or as a way to express the hurt/anger they feel by turning it in on themselves. 

Fortunately,  there is an answer to dealing with one's extreme self-criticism.  Scripture tells us, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31)".  So from a Christian perspective it is okay to have a healthy attitude and  actually like who we are.  The problem is when we overdo it and become self-centered or develop a big ego.  God simply wants us to view ourselves realistically, that we all have good traits but that we also all have issues or things that we struggle with (that sinful nature that we all constantly struggle with).  However, people who tend to be highly self-critical,  focus only on their weaknesses or what they think they've done wrong.  They purposely overlook the qualities that God has given them, the talents they have or the good things they have done in their lives.  You can tell them they look nice and rather than saying "Thank you", they'll focus on their shoes not being clean enough or their dress being a little wrinkled.  They tend to look for those things that will reinforce the negative way they view themselves.

Overcoming self-criticism, unfortunately, usually doesn't happen overnight.  It's usually a pattern of thinking that we've created in our minds and has been there a while, but it can be "unlearned".  Here's a simple exercise anyone can to if they want to become less critical of themselves. 

First, get a pen and piece of paper and carry it with you.  Begin to be more aware of how you're thinking, particularly about yourself.  Anytime you find yourself starting to become self-critical write down the answers to these questions:  What exactly were you thinking?  What were you saying to yourself?  What were the events that led up to those thoughts?  How did you feel afterwards and what thoughts did it bring to your mind about yourself?  This exercise is intended to help you become more aware of when you're becoming self-critical.  Then you go a step further and ask yourself: "Why was I self-critical?  What was my reason?  Was it any of the ones  previously mentioned?  Was it appropriate to what just happened?  Is it helpful for me to say these things to myself (was I honestly recognizing my limitations or correcting myself for something I did or said that was inappropriate, or was I belittling myself again)?  If your self- criticism was inappropriate, then your continuing the cycle that ends in you feeling bad about yourself.  If it was appropriate self-criticism, then learn from it and go on.  Don't fixate on it and beat yourself up.  Apologize to the person, if need be, and let it go.  Use it as a learning tool, not as further fuel to add to your already self-critical tendencies.

Some find it helpful to carry a second piece of paper with them, and they have this sentence written down on it:  "I'm very hard on myself but it's understandable given that ___________ (fill in the blank with what has happened to you), but rather than do what I usually do which is telling myself that _____________ (fill in the blank with what you say to yourself when you're self-criticizing yourself),  I'm going to  tell myself that _________________ (come up with a healthier, more appropriate way of talking to yourself) instead."    What this does it help you not only realize when and why you're being self-critical, but helps you develop a new way of thinking about yourself.  A lot of times people fill in that third blank with a Scripture verse or a more realistic statement to themselves. 

If you find that doing this exercise over several weeks does little to help you reduce your  self-criticism, it could be for one of several reasons.  You may have locked yourself into believing that your self-criticisms are true and see yourself as helpless, perhaps as a victim who has no way out.  Or maybe you do really do have the goal of perfectionism and are unwilling to give up that goal.  Is there a reason behind your self-criticism...do you think it's a virtue to look down on yourself?  Or maybe  you feel that nothing will ever change, you've tried everything there is and you're simply stuck where you are.

If you are not able to overcome your pattern of self-criticism, think about this.  Would you find it helpful to change?  Do you really want your circumstances to change?  How would you like to see your life different?  Reach out to God and ask Him to reveal to you why you treat yourself this way.  But be prepared, because when you ask God to show you why and how you need to change, it can sometimes be difficult to accept.  But always, always keep in mind that He has your best interests in mind.  He wants you to grow beyond this so  you can become not only more at peace with yourself, but so that you can eventually reach out and help others.

Chapter four:  Shame

Shame is feeling that "YOU" are wrong...it's not that what you did or said that's wrong, it's that there's something wrong with who you are. It is a vague feeling of guilt, but you can't pinpoint what it is that's causing the guilt.  The feeling of shame is about our very selves...not about some bad thing we did or said, but about what we are.  It tells us that we are unworthy, not just a part of us, but our entire being.  It leads to a constant feeling of weariness.  Jesus referred to this when He invited the "weary and heavy laden" to trade their heaviness for His lightness.  Shame is a vague sense of heaviness that you carry around with you that affects your ability to appreciate yourself, to enjoy life, and ends up with you  only seeing the negative things about yourself.  Shame can so distort your view of yourself, that how you view yourself becomes distorted, exaggerated and out of touch with reality.

Merle Fossum said that "A pervasive sense of shame is the ongoing premise that one is fundamentally bad, inadequate, defective, unworthy or not fully valid as a human being"

Keep in mind, there is a difference between guilt and shame.  We tend to feel guilty for what we do.  We feel shame for who we are.   A person feels guilty because he did something wrong.  A person feels shame because he is something wrong.  We may feel guilty because we lied to our mother.  We may feel shame because we are not the person our mother wanted us to be (or we think she wanted us to be).  Sometimes these feelings overlap.  A husband may feel guilty for lying to his wife, while also feel shame for being the kind of person that could do such a thing.  Guilt is mostly about things you have done, and shame is mostly about what you are.

Shame is also not embarrassment.  We feel properly embarrassed when we are caught doing something that makes us look inept, or is inappropriate behavior.  If you go in your pajamas to a formal dinner, you will feel embarrassed because you look bad...but you feel shame because you think you are bad.

So just what are the actual symptoms of feeling shame?  You may feel tired (physically, mentally and spiritually).  You feel there's something "wrong" with you but it can't be easily traced back to anything you've said or done.  You feel like you're less worthwhile than others.  Your approval comes from what you do, because you don't believe you can be loved just for being yourself.  You may tend to put others needs before your own, or feel over responsible for what happens. You persistently feel unacceptable, maybe unworthy, and  less than the person you are supposed to be.  You may even feel like you're a fake, you're inadequate, and you may often feel like you're not up to what is expected of you.  You probably feel inferior to the people that know you, and are worried that they'll find out who the "real" you is and decide they don't like you after all.  You may even feel that God must be disgusted with you, as you'll never be acceptable...somehow you're dirty, blemished or flawed.

When one lives with shame they often develop a keen sense of their surroundings.  They develop a sort of emotional "radar" that looks for signals in situations around them to see what they did to cause the circumstances to happen.  This radar also tunes in to find out what they need to do in order to be accepted, and surprisingly it can often be pretty accurate in picking up that something is wrong...the problem is that they somehow feel they are the cause of the problem, rather than being able to realistically see the problem for what it is.  Shame may cause one to live a life of  martyrdom, or feeling helpless and incapable of living life.  It  may cause one to have a hard time trusting God or other people, as fear stops the possibility of relationships out of fear of rejection.  People who struggle with shame often also struggle with depression, and it can overlap so much so that it's hard to tell where one begins and the other ends.  

Do you ever have the feeling that you don't measure up to the person you ought to be or that you're not as good as others?  When you look inside of yourself do you feel as if God or others would disown you if they knew the real you?  I would encourage you to look back in your life and try to discover when and where your sense of shame began.  It can be something that has always been in your life due to what another said about you or to you, or how they treated you.  It could also be the result of a wrong conclusion you adopted due to something that you did or said at one time.  Perfectionists can be hard on themselves, and to them one error can be exaggerated into a lifelong negative way of viewing themselves.

However, shame can be useful at times.  Healthy shame can be a warning signal to us that we are about to do something (or have done something) that is wrong.  Healthy shame is shame we deserve because it's our conscience telling us that we've behaved incorrectly and it's time to straighten ourselves out.  Maybe you said something to hurt someone's feelings or lied to your boss about having completed a task when you know it's still waiting to be finished.  If it is healthy shame then you simply need to make amends or tell the truth and ask forgiveness.  But, don't beat  yourself up over it once you've made amends or it'll be fuel for your unhealthy feelings of shame.  Learn to tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy shame.  Healthy shame is useful and teaches us...unhealthy  shame punishes us and beats us down.

To be healed of shame we don't deserve, we must eventually get to the point where we come to terms with the feelings we have about the person or persons who shamed us.  This can be extremely difficult to do as we often carry resentment, which in all probability, is affecting you much more than it is the one who is the cause of your shame.  He/she may not be aware of what they have done to you, or sadly, they may not even care... or worse yet, they may be glad they did it.  It is often those who have been hurt themselves that hurt others.

While psychology offers different ways of dealing with shame, as in telling yourself positive statements when you're feeling bad, or refocusing your attention onto something else, or helping others as a way of not being able to spend time focusing on your own problems, the only real long-term remedy is forgiveness.  Forgiving those who have caused this shame.    Forgiveness may be the last thing on your mind right now...in fact, if most people who have been hurt by others were to be honest, they'd say that they'd prefer some degree of revenge.  But revenge, while it may make you feel good in the short term, doesn't help.  It may even  add to your feelings of shame, because after time goes by you may begin to  look at yourself even worse because you'll ask yourself what type of person could have done such a thing.  No, my hurting friend, revenge is not the answer.  Forgiveness is the only answer that will bring you long-term, long lasting relief from your feelings of shame. 

We will discuss forgiveness in the next section.  I want to give you time to think about what you've read in this chapter and to prayerfully consider who it is in your life that you need to forgive for treating you so badly.  For some, it's just one person...for others, it may be a few.  If you'd find it helpful, write down who you feel  has shamed you and who it is that you ultimately need to forgive.

 Chapter Five:  Forgiving others

Do you find that you're still angry and resentful towards those who have hurt you?  One of the hardest commands to obey in the Scriptures is to forgive one another, especially if we feel that what was said or done to us was excessive or abusive in any way.  However  Matthew 6:14 tells us, "For if you forgive people their trespasses (their reckless and willful sins), your heavenly Father will also forgive you."...this is one of the hardest things that God will ever ask you to do.  But He asks you to do it because He knows it's best for you, and you're only hurting yourself by hanging on to your anger.  Webster’s Dictionary defines forgiving as “giving up resentment or the desire to punish; pardoning an offense or offender.”

We think that if we forgive those who have hurt us that somehow we are either letting them get away with it or agreeing it was okay for them to have acted that way.  It's in our nature to feel that they do not deserve to be forgiven, especially if they knowingly harmed us and showed no remorse...or worse yet, blamed us for what happened.  By forgiving them, you may feel you're letting them off the hook or overlooking what they have done.  Part of you wants to shout out, "They do not deserve to be forgiven!  They knowingly mistreated me and hurt me and had no remorse doing it.  Why should I forgive them?"  What makes it worse is when you know they are not going to change, and have no intention of changing.  When someone treats us that way,  we want them to hurt like we've been hurt. We may even hope that God will punish them to show them are not going to get away with it.   We want them to know how it feels to hurt.  

The bottom line is that you do need to forgive the person who has hurt you.  As long as you hold on to your resentment, you will never be at peace.  But let's be honest, you probably don't have the desire in you to forgive, let alone the willingness to actually do it.  Ask God to give you insight into why the person mistreated you.  It's a sad thing, but hurting people usually hurt others.  Is it possible that the person who hurt you has been mistreated, too?  In my practice, when talking about the need to forgive, I'd ask my client this question: "Was the person who mistreated you mistreated themselves?" Oftentimes it turns out that they had, and they were responding and reacting to what they had been through.  Once my client could see things from their perspective, it was easier for them to begin to think about forgiving them.  At that's where it starts.  The thought that "maybe" you  do want to forgive them, and "maybe" you do want to feel at peace by letting go of this hurt and anger. 

If you're not at a place where you can honestly forgive the person, admit this to God.  He knows your heart...you can't fool Him.  Ask Him to start changing your heart so you do want to forgive.  Ask Him to let you understand what they have gone through and how it has affected the way they treat others.  As time goes on, your "wanting to want to forgive", will become the desire to actually forgive them, especially if you get insight as to why he/she acts the way they do. And don't think that if a person is dead that they don't need to be forgiven.  Many carry grudges against people who passed away years ago.  And who is the unforgiveness hurting?  Certainly not the dead person, but the person who continues to feel the resentment and pain.

 

God knows the extent of the offense and He agrees it was wrong!  But, He also knows what unforgiveness does to us, physically, emotionally and spiritually.  It not only has the potential to produce health problems (medical studies have proven that angry people are sicker), but it also keeps us in emotional turmoil.  And if we choose not to forgive, we give Satan a foothold in our lives and our unforgiveness will produce bitterness in our hearts and we may become like the very person who hurt us.  

Hebrews 12: 14,15 says,  “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.  See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”  This Scripture is warning us that if we do not get rid of our unforgiveness, bitterness takes hold of us.  And, if left unattended, it  produces the sour fruits of anger, hatred, the desire for retaliation and even acts of violence and murder.  This bitterness may be at the very root of why the person mistreated you in the first place, so you can see how vitally important it is that you deal with your own unforgiveness so that you don't go on and hurt others as a result of your own hurt.  Stop the cycle from repeating itself!

Once you've forgiven the person, be careful that you don't allow your hurt and anger to regain a foothold in your life.  If you find yourself getting upset again, purposely pray for him/her, instead of reminding yourself how you were mistreated.  The best way to deal with your hurt and anger is to pray for the person, and ask God to heal their hurt and anger so that they no longer go around victimizing others. And if you discover that the person refuses to change, then maybe the best thing you can do is avoid him/her.  Forgiveness means moving beyond what has happened to you, it doesn't mean you allow yourself to be hurt again.  Unfortunately, that may mean severing ties to the person, or restricting how often you're around the person, or making sure you have someone with you when you're around them.  

After you've forgiven those who have hurt you, you will probably discover that you'll have feelings of sadness and loss over what has happened to you.  Next time we'll talk about how to deal with the grief you may be feeling as a result of what you've been through.