Forgiving What You Can’t Forget

Sharing my learnings from the book, Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lysa Terkeurst.

Though I would like to say that I don’t quite fully agree to a few parts of this as I’m not a religious person. But most of the items, is true.

Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lysa Terkeurst

#1 New York Times Bestselling author Lysa TerKeurst has wrestled through this journey. But in surprising ways, she’s discovered how to let go of bound-up resentment and overcome the resistance to forgiving people who aren’t willing to make things right. With deep empathy, therapeutic insight, and rich Bible teaching coming out of more than 1,000 hours of theological study, Lysa will help you:

• Learn how to move on when the other person refuses to change and never says they’re sorry.
• Walk through a step-by-step process to free yourself from the hurt of your past and feel less offended today.
• Discover what the Bible really says about forgiveness and the peace that comes from living it out right now.
• Identify what’s stealing trust and vulnerability from your relationships so you can believe there is still good ahead.
• Disempower the triggers hijacking your emotions by embracing the two necessary parts of forgiveness.

• Lysa TerKeurst thought her pain would never end.  When she discovered that her husband had been unfaithful to her, she tore down every happy picture of them as a couple and packed up all the mementos of their relationship. She tried to untangle her life from anything that reminded her of what had been – because, well, she didn’t know what else to do.  Eventually, she realized that holding onto her hurt – and defining her life by what her husband had done to her – only prevented her from healing. She had to find a way to process her pain by opening up her heart to forgiveness.
• Forgiveness isn’t always about doing something for a human relationship. It’s about being obedient to what God has instructed us to do. When we cooperate most fully with God’s work of forgiveness, we give up the desire to make others suffer for what they’ve done – and in return, we get the freedom to move on. 
• if the author had waited for things to feel fair, she could have waited forever. And even if the people who had hurt her repented of what they’d done, that wouldn’t undo what had happened. Once the author realized this, she knew that she had to separate her healing from other people’s choices. It made her see that her pain didn’t need to be validated by Art – or vindicated. It just needed to be spoken out loud, acknowledged, and recognized as real. 
• Coping strategies like being overly positive or taking substances to numb our feelings may help us cope in the short term. But in the long run, they don’t actually help us deal with our circumstances. Instead, these things keep us stuck in an alternative reality – one that covers up the pain we actually feel. 
• The author certainly didn’t know how to forgive. It was only when she started to unravel her past, understand the trauma she had experienced, and open herself up to the teachings of the Bible that she understood what she had to do to heal.
• In order to heal hurt fully, we have to dig into these stories – to uncover things from long ago that still affect us. This is what the author’s therapist called collecting the dots.
• After collecting the dots, the next stage is to connect the dots – which involves understanding how past traumas influence our behavior in the present.
• The thing is, collecting and connecting the dots isn’t really enough. You also have to correct them. This means finding the beliefs you’ve formed – based on all you’ve been through – and ensuring they’re life-giving and positive. 
• When we’re reeling from deep pain and hurt, forgiveness can seem impossible – especially when someone hasn’t just affected one season of our lives, but our whole lives. Hanging on to pain and anger, however, only prevents us from healing. If you’re struggling to forgive the wrong that’s been done to you, here’s a key thing to remember: forgiveness is more satisfying than revenge. 
• Choosing to forgive someone isn’t about letting them off the hook. It’s about releasing to the Lord your need for the wrongdoer to be punished.
• When the author surrendered her need to punish her abuser, her heart softened, and she reached a level of peace she never thought she’d experience. This doesn’t mean she ever forgot the hurt that was done to her; she just learned to see it as a single chapter in her continuing story.
• This is what dealing with trauma is like. On the surface, you may be dealing with things quite well. But when something triggers you, you can find yourself dealing with unresolved pain.  If this happens to you, don’t think that all your progress has been wasted. Instead, see it as part of your journey to forgiveness.