How Do I Forgive When The Wound Is Still Open?

Day 6 of 6 Day Devotional.

Day Six: Dysfunction Does Not Have to Be Your Legacy (Victory is Always on the Table)

Having no example, I often struggled with my own mothering, wondering if I was doing it “right.” Mothering for me is a book of empty pages that I’m learning to fill with each step and misstep. What if I write the story wrong? Perhaps you relate in an area of your life that had dysfunction in it.

Perhaps right now you are reading this and you feel lost in the dark.

You think there is no way out, no way things could change, no way your tender heart could heal. Further, the very thought of forgiving and loving the person who hurt you the most sounds impossible. Some of you reading this right now are just sad—sad at what you missed out on, for what was taken from you, for the unfairness of it all. Your little-girl heart just wants to be loved by the person who was supposed to love you. It’s a deep and often private ache, I know. Some of you have decided that to hope is just to hurt, and so you’ve placed hope in the attic, letting it collect dust, only holding onto it because you haven’t wanted to bother with it. Hope is dangerous, and it’s best kept tucked away. 

Here’s what I want you to know:

There are miracles and surprises and gifts even in the middle of the pain and the mess and complication of it all. 

Dysfunction does not have to be your legacy. You may have been born into it, married into it, or created it yourself, but it does not have to be your destiny or your identity. 

Victory is always on the table. It’s always been ours, we just have to believe it and walk in it. There will be struggle and pain, but there is hope and a way through because Jesus promises to bind up our wounds and heal our broken hearts. He promises that as we listen and follow Him, we will know the truth, and it will set us free. We may not ever get the happy ending we so long for on this earth, and we may have hard and heavy stories, but it doesn’t mean we are stuck in dysfunction and darkness. We get to be generational-bondage breakers, lighting up the dark places with our stories—the ones Satan meant for evil and destruction but what God will use for good! There may not be a tied-up bow, but there is a cross that offers freedom and healing and an ultimate happy ending.

Victory in Jesus is yours, right now. Will you walk in it?

Key Application: Dysfunction does not have to be our legacy. Choose now to believe that God is greater than your fears, your failures, and your figuring-it-out fumbles. You get to be a generational bondage-breaker, and you do this by believing God, surrendering to Him in all things, and telling of who He is and what He’s done. 

How Do You Forgive When The Wound Is Still Open?

Day 5 of 6 Day Devotional.

Day Five: Forgiving When the Wound is Still Open (Remembering the Truth)

How do we forgive when we’re still hurting, when it feels unfair, when there is no tidy ending?

Forgiveness is a process, one that begins with a declaration that we are willing to trust God with our pain and the person who wronged us, but then it’s a continual movement toward that trust as the feelings of our wounds arise. Here are some truths to hold onto as you forgive:

Truth: We can trust God with our pain.

Say to God: “Lord, I feel like this situation is so unfair, and I feel so wronged, and I don’t know what to do with it, but I trust that You do know what to do with it. You know me, You know them, and You see all the things I don’t. Plus, I know You love me and have my back (as well as theirs), so here You go, God, it’s all Yours.” Prayers like this help you trust God with both the person and the situation. 

Nobody gets a free pass to skip the battle, not even the person who wronged you. When we remember that truth, that everyone is facing a hard battle, we can have compassion on the person who wronged us. 

Truth: God calls us to be humble and own our part of the dysfunction.

Ask God: “Is there something I have done that I should ask forgiveness for with the person who wronged me? Is there a part of this dysfunction that I’m creating or making worse?” Ask it. And ask without expectation that you will be asked for forgiveness in return. Free and clear, ask genuinely. Think also about all the times you have wronged someone—times when others have had to trust God with the pain you’ve inflicted—and your own compassion will rise.

Truth: God calls us to be people of the light. 

The enemy wants nothing more than to keep us in the dark—seething, vengeful, broiling, stormy inside. He wants us far away from forgiveness, because forgiveness shines beautifully bright to a calloused world. In the gospel, Christ’s forgiveness of us brought us from darkness to light, and as we follow his example and forgive others, we bring dark situations into the light as well. 

Truth: God gives us counselors.

The Bible is chock-full of passages that reveal the value of godly counsel in our lives. Seek outside help from wise and kind mentors, friends, and/or counselors. God in His kind provision gave people gifts of counseling, and we can reap such healthy rewards through the help of others. I would not be where I am today if it weren’t through the gentle help of so many others. Don’t try to heal on your own. 

Key Application: Forgiveness is a process and sometimes what gets us through when things feel shaky is hanging on to the truths in Scripture we know to be true and stable.  God will help you when the hurt you’ve experienced surfaces—all you have to do is remember Him and the truth he has given you in his Word. 

Is there someone you need to forgive? What’s holding you back? How will you trust God with the situation? What truth from Scripture can you remember when you are tempted to turn back and not forgive?

How Do You Forgive When The Wound Is Still Open?

Day 4 Of 6 Day Devotional.

Day Four: Mourning Losses (The Process of Facing Reality)

Why do we have to mourn? Because it is the process of accepting reality.

After I set boundaries with my mom, I learned another lesson in how to love her, and that was to mourn the loss of her. She was not a mom—well, not the nurturing, loving mom my heart needed. And for me to continue holding her to the expectation that she would be one to me was to pound my fist on reality, trying to get it to bend to my will. I had to face the truth, and the even though it was painful, it was true. If I was going to move forward in my life in healthy ways, I needed to attend my mom’s proverbial funeral in my heart. And I did. 

Surprisingly, mourning her loss actually allowed me to love her because I no longer expected her to be what she wasn’t. Instead, I saw her as a human created in the image of God, in need of love, who had her own wounds and sin and history.

If you want to love the person who has hurt you, perhaps you need to mourn what you do not have in them.

Now here’s an important distinction: we mourn the truth of our past losses, which involves letting go of our expectations and what hasn’t been, but we never mourn the future because the future is where hope lives. We have no idea what the future holds with our relationships and our lives, so to mourn it would be to cast darkness over the dawn. As long as we are breathing on this earth, there is hope.

As to our sadness in the mourning, here’s the good news: You can still have a fulfilling life and  joy, even in the midst of unmet needs, because God is the ultimate source of our joy and our provision, and that source isn’t going anywhere. 

It’s okay to have some sadness in our life regarding loss. The goal is to get to the point where the pain no longer consumes us or controls our perception of ourselves, others, God, and the world.

Lament is a gift from God allowing the truth of our pain to speak and the guttural cry of our hearts to have space to feel what is and what should have been. Don’t push grief away; let the it be the gateway toward healing and freedom and the ability to love even when it hurts.

Key Application: Some people mourn losses by sitting and crying. Some do this through talking to friends and family. Others, through journaling, doing art, running, listening to music, and so on. There are a variety of ways to grieve. Choose whatever constructive activity brings you peace and joy to help you face reality as it is and look toward the future with hope. 

Is there a person in your life you need to forgive for not being what they should have been? What loss in regard to that person do you need to mourn?