Forgiveness: I Don't Know How

When someone speaks of forgiveness from a pulpit, it often sounds easy. Just pray a prayer, let it go, and move on. But when the betrayal is absolute—when the abuse was intentional, when the theft was your innocence, or when the wound was inflicted by the very person who was supposed to protect you—"letting it go" feels impossible.

We sit in the dark, clutching our rage because it feels like the only justice we have left, and we cry out, *"I don't know how to forgive."*

And the brutal, honest truth is this: you don’t.

You do not possess the human capacity to forgive a soul-crushing betrayal. Human forgiveness has a limit, and deep trauma shatters right through it. If you try to dig down into your own emotional reserves to find the strength to pardon your abuser, you will only find exhaustion and bitterness.

Forgiveness of that magnitude is not a human act; it is a supernatural one. You cannot do it on your own. You have to borrow the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

When Jesus was hanging on the cross, His flesh torn open by the people He came to save, He did not wait for an apology. He did not wait for the Romans to realize they were wrong. He looked down at His executioners and said, *"Father, forgive them."*

To forgive someone who broke you is not to say that what they did was okay. It does not mean you have to reconcile with them, and it does not mean they escape God's justice. Forgiveness is a violent, deliberate act of obedience where you take your bleeding hands off their throat and hand them over to the terrifying justice of God.

You do not have to feel it for it to be real. You just have to make the choice. Stop trying to find the strength in yourself. Look at the cross, realize how much debt was forgiven for you, and ask the Savior to do through you what you cannot do yourself. Drop the debt, and walk out of the prison.