When You Need to Forgive
A wound you keep reopening, and a person you cannot yet release.
Encouragement
Forgiveness is one of the most misunderstood commands in Scripture, largely because it is often presented as a demand to stop being hurt. It is not. It is a decision to stop carrying the debt, made possible only because you were forgiven first. You can release someone without pretending the wound was small, and you can do it slowly, more than once, as the hurt returns. God is not asking you to feel nothing. He is asking you to hand Him the ledger. That is not weakness. It is the beginning of freedom, and it is the same mercy that was extended to you.
Scripture for this season
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
Ready · Read aloud exactly as written in the King James Version.
Guided prayer
God, You know exactly what was done to me and how much it still hurts. I do not have the strength to release this on my own. Forgive me for the hardness that has grown in me, and help me hand You what this person owes me. Do it in me slowly if it must be slow. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Ready
One practical next step
Pray one sentence of blessing over the person who hurt you, even if you do not feel it yet.
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