The Brutal, Beautiful Truth About Forgiving Infidelity

Forgiveness sounds beautiful in theory, but feels like warfare in practice. When betrayal shatters your world, the journey toward healing isn't the clean, linear process we're often sold. Instead, it's messy, cyclical, and demands more than just a spiritual decision.

This raw, honest exploration dives deep into what forgiveness truly requires after betrayal trauma. Drawing from personal experience and professional expertise, I break down the dangerous half-truths about forgiveness that keep us stuck in shame when our bodies don't immediately align with our spiritual choices. The truth? Your nervous system doesn't automatically detox just because you've made the decision to forgive. 

Neuroscience confirms what many trauma survivors intuitively know - trauma memories bypass rational processing, residing in the amygdala where they trigger physical responses long after we've cognitively chosen forgiveness. This isn't spiritual failure; it's biology. Real healing happens when we stop pretending we're "over it" and start integrating our minds, bodies, and spirits through honest engagement with our pain.

I share the critical distinction between forgiveness (which is vertical, between you and God) and reconciliation (which is horizontal and requires genuine repentance). You can release someone from your inner court without inviting them back into your inner life. For those whose offenders never apologized, this distinction brings powerful freedom.

Whether you're walking through betrayal trauma yourself or supporting someone who is, this episode offers a framework for forgiveness that honors both God's commands and your body's need for safety. Healing isn't a straight line, but a rhythm of surrender, integration, and persistence that transforms us from the inside out.

Transcript

Life's Unexpected Pauses

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey guys, jen, here again, founder of Revive Wellco Counseling, a therapist and a coach, and right now you're listening to Theo's Psych Podcast. This is where we really dismantle half-truths and we walk through deep waters of healing wounds, of trauma, and it's been a couple of months since I've been behind this mic, since the last episode, and I want you to know right now that was not a marketing strategy or a content break. It was life. We did lose a dear friend, we had multiple loved ones deploy, including my husband, and I had to pull back to sit in the tension of my own words. Do I push through and record this episode just to stay relevant or on schedule, or do I pause for a moment and give the real version of myself, not one that is performative? And I chose presence over performance, and so that's why I'm coming to you now.

What Forgiveness Is Not

Speaker 1 1:00

Even deeper truth that I want to share with you, and maybe some of you can relate to this, is the moment I said that I was going to talk about forgiveness. I underestimated how that would stir me. You know, guys, I have walked through this, I've taught others to walk through this, I've processed it, I've shared my story with others and I have healed in so many ways. But two months ago, when I said that I was going to do an episode on forgiveness after infidelity, looking into psychology and spirituality of forgiveness and into the depths of my story and I would have no control over who heard that I realized that there was a surge of emotional intensity in me. It hit me when I agreed to revisit the place where my soul felt crushed and it was intimidating. And I want you to know it's not because I am weak, and neither are you. It's because honesty is heavy and there's a lot of weight that goes with it and that's why people lie, that's why people don't tell the truth and there's a lot of weight that goes with it and that's why people lie, that's why people don't tell the truth and that's why telling the truth about forgiveness is real and raw and biblical here and psychologically grounded. And it isn't for the faint of heart, and especially not when you've lived betrayal, trauma and made it out on the other side with scars that still burn when the air shifts. So I'm showing up for you today, not as a doctoral expert with a formula for healing, but as a woman who fought for truth in a gaslit world, who cried herself to sleep, who quoted scripture, who didn't know if she was going to be able to forgive the person praying beside her. And I'm not here to sell you that healing can be done in five easy steps. I'm here to look you in the eyes and tell you that forgiveness is not a one-time event. Scripture tells us 70 times 7. It's bloody, it's a bruised journey, and if you're not ready to talk about what forgiveness is not, then you're not ready to talk about what forgiveness is. But I'm going to start today with talking about what forgiveness is not.

Speaker 1 3:21

So sometimes people will try to convince us forgiveness is forgetting. It is not forgetting. Or forgiveness is pretending it didn't happen. Forgiveness is not pretending. It's certainly not avoiding the topic to keep peace. Forgiveness is not keeping the peace. Forgiveness is not ignoring justice or not doing toxic empathy. Forgiveness is not telling yourself that you're fine when you're not. Forgiveness is not emotional amnesia. That is certainly not okay. It is not spiritually bypassing you.

Speaker 1 3:57

Let me put this plainly If someone told you forgiveness means staying silent to be godly, they were not quoting Christ. No, they were quoting control. And you know, jesus forgave, but he never erased reality. He entered into it, he bore it, he named it, he looked into the eyes of his betrayers and he bled for them. So I want to speak to the person listening who has been told just forgive and forget, or you won the battle so that someone else could stay comfortable. I see you. I was you and you do not have to be quiet.

Speaker 1 4:39

When my husband was unfaithful, the church told me to pray more. When I couldn't sleep because my body was buzzing with fire and panic, christian books told me to release it to God. And when I confronted the truth and demanded accountability, some people called me bitter. But let me be clear bitterness is unresolved anger, and anger is to move us to justice. So confronting sin with clarity is courage. So if you're walking through betrayal trauma and your body still trembles, if your mind revisits the wounds even after you've said the words I forgive you, please know that you are not broken. You are a human and you are healing. And trauma does not erase just because you made a godly decision to move forward. In fact, neuroscience tells us, it confirms, that trauma memory is stored in the amygdala, bypassing rational processing, so your body will often react before theology will ever catch up. That doesn't make you faithless, it makes you in need of integration, and that's where real healing will begin.

Speaker 1 5:54

So I want to talk to you about where I failed and where I rose. Let me tell you where I got it wrong. I tried to forgive without feeling. I tried to extend mercy before I felt safe, I said it's okay when it wasn't and then wondered why do I keep relapsing into this resentment, into being this angry person? And the truth I was bypassing the cross? Angry person and the truth, I was bypassing the cross.

Forgiveness Versus Weakness

Speaker 1 6:29

You know, forgiveness is not about silencing the pain, it's about taking it to Christ. You know, it's taking that pain and refusing to carry it alone. So you're taking it to God. It's about choosing to stop drinking that poison of vengeance and then handing the cup to Jesus instead. And let me remind you, that is not weakness, that's warfare. Forgiveness is making war against the spiritual forces that tell you to protect yourself. Right, I mean, instead of putting up that wall, instead of having all that pride, instead of wanting punishment on the person, it's grace.

Speaker 1 7:09

Romans 2.4 says that God's kindness leads to repentance, not threats, not withdrawal, not silent treatment. So when I chose kindness, I wasn't being passive, I was picking up a sword. This is not toxic empathy. This is biblical movement. But don't confuse that sword with denial. Matthew 18 gives a very clear protocol for conflict and repentance, boundaries and confrontation, accountability and that is biblical, that is holy.

Speaker 1 7:43

But when we look at the trauma research and one of the researchers in this area, contaris, talks about the restoration and shows that trauma healing requires safety, validation and repetition that means rebuilding trust with measurable markers. That means rebuilding trust with measurable markers, not blind trust, but rebuilt trust. So we're not asking you to jump back in your marriage and have 100% trust. That's not realistic. I didn't erase the past and move on. I sat in it, I named it and I slowly, through therapy and prayer and honest conversation, rewrote my story with my partner, with my husband, one day at a time. That's forgiveness. It's not a single chapter. It's lived, it's merciful, and so we need to get honest about that.

Speaker 1 8:45

You know what doesn't get talked about in the church the rage that comes after when you say I forgive you, man, the emotions that rise up in the body. Guys, the body doesn't magically detox because you made a spiritual choice. You can weep in your prayer closet one night, surrender your offender to the cross and still wake up the next morning with your hands trembling, your jaw clenched, and two days later with a memory that slaps you in the face out of nowhere. That's not proof that you didn't forgive. That's evidence that trauma is stored in your body and that it lives in your nervous system, not just in your mind. Remember I said forgiveness is not amnesia. It's also not weakness. It is not Christian denial dressed up in Sunday's best.

Speaker 1 9:42

We're not doing these platitudes. Why does it still hurt then? Now I get asked that a lot in counseling and I want to share a story with you that a woman shared with me. She said I forgave him for the affair and we stayed together. I forgave him for the affair and we stayed together. We renewed our vows, we let the old marriage go and we were coming into the new marriage and I thought it was going to be all new and afresh. But I found myself screaming into a bathroom towel when he was five minutes late from work and I hated myself for it. I get it.

Speaker 1 10:26

I've been there too, and I remember one moment, after my own betrayal, we'd had a great week. I remember specifically, it was lighthearted, connected, you know. We even prayed over dinner. Things were just good. You know, we even prayed over dinner, things were just good. And there was an ordinary afternoon and I saw an old email notification pop up while I'm sorting through some receipts. And it had nothing scandalous in it, but it had a date. And my brain lit up like a trauma minefield.

Speaker 1 11:00

Suddenly, I was not safe. I wasn't even here. I was not safe. I wasn't even here. I was there again Back in that timeline, back in that betrayal. I couldn't even catch my breath.

Speaker 1 11:13

And my husband says what's going on? Why are you so upset? There's been so much time that has passed, and in that moment I felt weak. And now I know where I am in my life today. That was my nervous system crying out for integration. Forgiveness had been chosen, but trauma had not been discharged from the nervous system yet. And so I want to leave you with that truth. Just because your mind says I forgive doesn't mean your body understands where you're at. And so if we look at psychology, it confirms this. And in Ephesians 4.26, paul says be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. This isn't just moral instruction. There's neurobiological wisdom in that Unresolved anger, especially when spiritually bypassed, it gets stored in the body and that's what you see a lot.

The Body's Response to Betrayal

Speaker 1 12:18

You haven't let go of your anger. According to research in the Journal of Affective Disorders, they really talk about chronical suppression of anger and the correlation between these elevated levels of cortisol in the body and physiological arousal and the coming of depression. In other words, what you don't process, your body stores and holds onto and it will come right back up and right, back up and right. It's just reactive until you process. It is a cycle Suppression, reactivity, depression. So suppression is you decide to move on too quickly. You skip over the pain, you think it's spiritual maturity, this is the decisions that you've been told. Hey, that's going to help me get through this.

Speaker 1 13:08

Reactivity is unprocessed emotions. They begin leaking out. You're irritable, you're on edge, you're snappy, you're overwhelmed by small triggers, maybe things that happen like when the woman who shared with me he's late. You begin to wonder and then comes depression. The body is so tired of fighting, it has numbed itself. You lose motivation, you lose clarity, you think it's spiritual failure, but it's your nervous system that is collapsing and the world says that you need closure. But the truth is that closure is not always possible. Closure is not always the answer. Sometimes it's integration that's the answer. And integration happens when truth, emotion and memory are processed in the presence of safety, in the presence of compassion, and that is a necessary, that is an absolute need for you to be able to move forward.

Speaker 1 14:08

You know so, when we look at the spiritual truth of this, forgiveness is a choice, but it's not a one-time choice, it's a decision before it's ever a feeling. It's a defiance of the spiritual dark world. You know, if we look at Matthew 5, 44, jesus said but I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you One of my favorite verses. But it stings a little differently when the persecution is you and it's your spouse that has done this. It's not some soft, sentimental idea. Jesus was literally saying. This is to people under Roman oppression. People have seen relatives crucified, people who were waiting for the Messiah to take vengeance and instead they were told to pray for their executioners. That hits a little differently, doesn't it? It's not weakness, it's warfare.

Speaker 1 15:09

And to forgive someone who has broken your trust, who's devastated your soul, is to wage war against the powers of bitterness and pride and revenge that destroy lives from the inside out. And I've seen it. It's not excusing the sin. Again, we're not talking about toxic empathy here. It's about refusing to be mastered, to be controlled, to live by that sin or that pain of that sin. It's to stop pretending that forgiveness is the finish line, because it's not. It's not the ribbon at the end of your healing, it's not that you are going to start a new marriage and have a new relationship at the point of this ribbon crossing and then the journey is new again. It's a battlefield where everything you believe about God and about justice and about self-worth and about evil, it gets exposed and it's raw and your nervous system still thinks that you're at war, even when you've made the choice to forgive and you meant it and you prayed and you invited God into it, and the pain is still there.

Speaker 1 16:21

So what do you do with that? I get that question a lot. What do we do with that? I get that question a lot. What do we do with that? Well, I can tell you that research tells us that the amygdala part of the limbic system, the part of your brain responsible for scanning for threats it does not take orders from your conscious decision to move on. It's going to react to patterns. It's going to remember the tone and the timing and the body language and the smells, and those things make that memory stronger. It doesn't need evidence, it just needs resemblance. This means you can have forgiven your spouse, forgiven your friend, forgiven your abuser, and still feel unsafe when they walk into the room or say something in a certain tone or a certain way, or they're five minutes late. It is not bitterness, it is biology, and we've been sold a lie A lot of times. Platforms will say this you are not crazy. You are fragmented. Your body is the one that hasn't let go and God doesn't leave fragments. He's going to restore you and he restores us to whole and we know that.

Speaker 1 17:32

The Bible tells us that God does not rush our healing. You know, if we go to Genesis and we look at Adam, when we look at Eve, god didn't skip over the consequences. He didn't say to Adam and Eve I want you to focus on the good and forget what happened. He never told them that. He showed up and he asked questions. He asked questions. He asked Adam. Where are you To give Adam to give notice to where he was, so that he didn't forget? Who told you you were naked? Where did those consequences come from? What is this that you have done?

Speaker 1 18:16

God did not avoid the rupture. He stepped right into it and he named it, and that's what we have to do. This is the model for healing the truth before reconciliation. We name before we restore, not as a punishment, but as a path to validation, as a path to intimacy. That is when the healing begins. So what does this mean for us as human beings? What's the raw truth here?

Integration: When Mind and Body Heal

Speaker 1 18:42

And I think most of us want control, not restoration. We want control because we don't want to hurt Forgiveness when done God's way. It's not a weakness, but you're not in control. God is. It is relinquishing that false authority. You know, to stand in God's courtroom as a judge and a jury and an executioner and an executioner. That's where the real war begins.

Speaker 1 19:13

So I want to just be honest with you. We don't just want healing. A lot of us want the person who harmed us to know they harmed us. We want them to feel it right. We want them to own it. We want them to know what we're going through and we want them to come to us with an apology and also owning what they did. And they don't.

Speaker 1 19:38

We feel stuck, but here's what scripture says Do not repay evil for evil. Do not take revenge. It specifically says leave room for God's wrath. It specifically says leave room for God's wrath. You know, when we quote scripture like that, I want you to think about what Paul is issuing here. It's a commandment. It cuts into your survival instincts and it leaves room for God. That is not a suggestion to play nice. It is God's divine demand to step out of the judgment seat because you're not the judge. I am not the judge. We have to put down the gavel and we have to let the king roll.

Speaker 1 20:29

And every time we replay the offense, every time you dwell and fantasize about the moment they finally say I was wrong. We're still trying to get justice on our own terms. I still want them to hurt. I heard a lady say to me once I still want to see him in pain. Someone messaged me anonymously about a year ago and one of my clients and said I've forgiven him, but I still want to see him suffer, not forever, but just long enough to see him cry like I cried. You know I really I wanted to encourage her in that time because I've been there.

Speaker 1 21:12

There was a time I prayed God, I want vengeance. I shared this with you guys in the last episode burn heaping coals on their head. I wanted them to feel the weight of what I did. But that is not mercy. That's cosmetic forgiveness with a quiet desire for karma. Right, that's not Christ. That's cosmetic forgiveness with a quiet desire for karma. Right, that's not Christ. That's counterfeit.

Speaker 1 21:36

And the truth is that when you've been betrayed, when you've been humiliated, when you've been used or even discarded, your soul screams for justice. That desire is not wrong, that is godly. God gave us righteous anger. He gave us a desire for righteousness. But you cannot meet a holy desire with an unhealthy means. Hear me say that you cannot.

Speaker 1 22:08

And what happens when you hold on to it? What happens when you refuse to let go, when you stay stuck in the need to see that pain inflicted on somebody else before you're willing to rest? You're reinforcing neural loops in your own mind and you are tying your identity to victimhood. And that is what victimhood is. We dwell and we dwell and we dwell and we think about this over and over. Dr Caroline Leith. She talks about neuroplasticity in this aspect. The more we ruminate on the injustice without surrendering it, the more entrenched it becomes in our memory, encoded in our brain, in our very neurobiology, and it shapes how we see the world, how we see others, even God. We can see that in generational trauma. If you look, your brain becomes loyal to pain and you, being a victim, you literally train your brain and your body to expect betrayal everywhere, and that expectation becomes the lens in which you see life through, even when the thread is gone. And this is why Paul commands us in Romans 12 to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Speaker 1 23:21

Forgiveness is spiritual warfare on trauma loops, okay, the loops in your brain that you keep replaying. Forgiveness is spiritual warfare against that. And the deep application here is what forgiveness really is. So let me be clear about what forgiveness is. Not one more time. It is not excusing or forgetting. It is not pretending that it didn't happen. It is not pretending that you're over it. It's not waiting on someone else to change. It certainly is not any type of bypassing, no, spiritual bypassing, no bypassing of our pain. It is not silence by keeping peace.

Speaker 1 24:02

Forgiveness is a choice to walk with God even while your body is aching, a refusal to become what was done to you, a surrender of your right to revenge that Christ can reign. It's a commitment to healing, even when healing means remembering with grief, not rage, a longing to see the one who harmed you restored not just you, but to see them restored to Christ. That longing doesn't come from moral superiority. Remember that longing does not come from moral superiority. It comes from kneeling low enough to remember that you're in need of mercy too. And let's talk about what that actually looks like to walk that out. You know forgiveness, not in theory, but in the battlefield of the memory and the triggers and the trauma loops. Forgiveness isn't just theologically, it's not just a theological principle or a moment at the altar. It's Monday morning in your kitchen when the person who hurt you comes walking in with coffee like nothing ever happened, and it's hearing their phone buzz and your stomach drops and your body still remembers what came after that sound. It's the quiet aches at night when you know you've chosen to stay up, but your heart hasn't caught up yet. That's where forgiveness is forged, right there in the nervous system. And if you haven't read the book the Body Keeps Score, I recommend it.

Forgiveness Without Reconciliation

Speaker 1 25:50

Bessel van der Kolk talks specifically about trauma recovery and he talks about unresolved betrayal, trauma rewiring the body's alarm system, your vagus nerve, your amygdala, your hippocampus all of that is involved in assessing safety based not on rational thought but on perceived threat. What does that mean? Well, it means you can decide to forgive intellectually, in the forefront of your brain, but your body is still going to remember that there is danger there. So how do you live out forgiveness with a nervous system that is screaming I'm not safe. I don't like the position that I'm in right now, and the answer is integration. Forgiveness has to move from a cognitive choice to an embodied practice in your body. That is the only way through the pain, through the trauma, not around it, and that happens slowly, with intentionality, repeated, truth-based interactions where your nervous system learns I am no longer in danger, I am safe.

Speaker 1 27:08

This is not just about grace, this is neuroplasticity. This is the way God made your brain. You're rewiring your brain to match your spirit's surrender and you know I'll give you a real life example of what my marriage looked like. There were days after I said I forgive you, days after I said I forgive you that I couldn't look at him. I had intrusive thoughts, emotional flashbacks. I had physiological flashbacks, physical reactions that I couldn't control. I would be folding the laundry and suddenly I'd remember that I saw on his phone and my heart would race. I remember my chest being tightened and I felt humiliated all over again. That didn't mean that I had not forgiven my husband. It meant my body was still healing and sometimes this takes a long time.

Speaker 1 28:10

This is where a lot of people give up and they mistake trauma resurfacing as unforgiveness and sometimes our partners can say I thought you forgave me for that, but it's not that. It's the sanctification of your nervous system that takes time. When your spirit and your mind have said this is what we're going to do. It's not about denying what happened, mind have said this is what we're going to do. It's not about denying what happened. It's about choosing not to let the offense define you or your marriage anymore. Be angry but do not sin. Let's go back to that. Be angry but do not sin. God's word says don't let the sun go down on your anger. A lot of us know that verse. That verse doesn't say that anger is wrong.

Speaker 1 29:01

Anger moves us, to motivate us, to push us against an injustice, but it assumes that the present time is the issue. And if you let it simmer and fester and harden into bitterness. From a psychological standpoint, this is suppression versus resolution, and suppressed anger leads to physiological stress responses elevated cortisol, disrupted sleep, increased risk of depression, cardiovascular problems. But the problem is that anger is not the issue. It is that letting anger fester. Resolved anger means the emotion has been expressed and processed and released without being weaponized. But how do you resolve it? Well, go back to the garden. We name it and we sit with it. We sit with what we know has happened, we let it move through us and we invite Christ into it, not to remove it but to teach us what it is revealing to us about ourselves, about our marriage, about our spouse, about the world.

Speaker 1 30:08

And I think it's so important that you practice grief check-ins, because when you experience betrayal trauma, it's grief, you're grieving. Set a time to go and to grieve, not to ruminate but to honor the loss. But what is now coming? What am I holding on to? What pain has resurfaced this week? What do I need to let go of?

Speaker 1 30:34

Again, remember forgiveness is not a one-time act, it is a rhythm. It is a rhythm, a movement, a repetitive movement when triggered. I would repeat what happened was real, it hurt. I would repeat what happened was real, it hurt, but I am not in danger anymore, I am safe, I am held, I am healing and the anger serves me no purpose because I am not threatened anymore and regulating that nervous system and regulating that vagus nerve through meditations and prayers.

Speaker 1 31:09

In my marriage we created rituals for repair and you know he would name the trigger with me. I know that, look, are you remembering this again? And I would say I am and I don't feel safe and I'm really struggling to stay present right now. And this is forgiveness in action. Not perfection, but presence. How can we pray together right now? Let's accept this is forgiveness in action. Not perfection, but presence. How can we pray together right now? Let's accept this is here and let's move. We cannot override our biology without partnering with the spirit. So we come together and we say Jesus, bring the peace in here, bring us back to the presence, release my judgment and over my nervous system, help me to feel safe again and recognizing and grounding myself and knowing that I am in a new marriage and I am no longer in the season that I was in before.

Speaker 1 32:07

Yes, forgiveness is a choice. It is. It's not a one and done choice, though it's repetitive, it's a discipleship practice you know James talks about. Let us persevere, finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, with nothing lacking. And guess what Perseverance hurts? You will forgive and your heart will still ache. You will surrender and the memory will still show up, just like grief, when you lose someone you love. It is the same. You will bless your enemies and bitterness will knock again tomorrow. And that is not failure. That's what walking with Christ feels like sometimes.

Speaker 1 32:54

Forgiveness is not the absence of the pain. It's a refusal to let that pain be the final word. It's a refusal to live through the lens of that pain. It's refusing to say I'm always going to look at my partner as if they were that person, because they are renewed. We are renewed in Christ and forgiveness is where we stop playing God and we let God be God right. It's where we stop performing healing. We start partnering with our healer. It's where there were times when I said to my husband I need you to pray with me because I'm there again, and so it's speaking truth and being honest and having transparency in that marriage and coming and inviting Christ in the middle.

Speaker 1 33:39

And remember that forgiveness is the furnace where idols burn. Idols have no control, justice is served, self-righteousness is gone in the healing itself. And what's left in the ashes? The real you? You're going to be scarred, but you're going to be surrendered and you're going to be free. And what if they never say I'm sorry? Well, what if they die before you ever hear them own what they did to you? What if they just moved on with their life and they left you bleeding, trying to decide if forgiveness still applies when justice never shows up.

Speaker 1 34:21

It does, and I want to talk to you about that because for some of you, that's where theology meets the most brutal emotional terrain. When the offender is either unreachable or unrepentant, you know people will say things like just write them a letter and burn it they tell us a lot in therapy to do that or let it go. You're only hurting yourself, or you're drinking the poison that you want for them. God knows your heart right. But when your soul is full of unfinished grief again I'm going back to betrayal trauma is a season of grief these kinds of sayings can feel like paper towels on a house fire.

Moving Forward With Scars

Speaker 1 35:10

So how do we forgive the person who won't or can't repent? What do we do? They won't tell us they're sorry. They won't own what they did to us. Well, remember that forgiveness is commanded. Reconciliation is conditional, but forgiveness is commanded. So let's be exceedingly clear. Forgiveness is what God calls you to do. Reconciliation is a mutual process that requires repentance. Okay, we can look at that at Luke 17.3. And you can read more about that.

Speaker 1 35:47

You can release someone from your inner court without inviting them back into your inner life, and I'm going to say that again. You can release someone from your inner court without inviting them back into your inner life. You can obey Christ by forgiving, while still obeying wisdom by keeping the door shut, conveying wisdom by keeping the door shut. You know there's a scripture that says forgive them, for they know not what they do. Right, jesus said it, he did, he released them, he didn't reconcile with them because reconciliation wasn't possible for them and it's not possible for everyone. Forgiveness is vertical, it's between you and God. Reconciliation is horizontal. It's between you and the other image bearer, and that horizontal piece must include repentance, repair, responsibility. I mean, hear me say that again. The horizontal piece must include repentance, repair and responsibility. I mean, hear me say that again. The horizontal piece must include repentance, repair and responsibility. Okay, but the vertical is between you and God.

Speaker 1 37:02

And so when you think about unforgiveness versus unresolvedness Everett Worthington, one of the experts on forgiveness he talks about this critical distinction. Forgiveness is not forgetting, it's not excusing and it's certainly not reconciling. It is the process of replacing ill will with goodwill through the stages of recall, through the stages of recall, empathy, altruism, commitment and holding on to the reach model. But there's something else we need to talk about. Unresolvedness is not the same as unforgiveness. Okay, you can have forgiven someone in your heart, you can have said, lord, I forgive them. You can have sought and prayed and have forgiveness for them, but you still feel sad. You still have sadness about the situation, maybe you still have anger, maybe you still feel triggered. These are not sin, they are signals. They are signals from your body. Forgiveness is the deliberate process of removing the penalty, not necessarily the pain, and that is my story. You won't always be free of that scar, but you can forgive and love and move forward with your life, with them or without.

Speaker 1 38:36

I remember standing in my bathroom one night after my husband fell asleep, gripping the sink. I remember my chest being so tight and my mind was racing. I had already forgiven him and I had already walked through confessions and counselings and repentance. And I had already walked through confessions and counselings and repentance, and I had already addressed this with God. But there was still part of me mourning what I never got the full story, the moment he collapsed in tears on his own, the realization that he betrayed himself and not just me. And in that moment the Holy Spirit left me with something I'll never forget. Jennifer, you're not forgiving the man next to you. You're forgiving the version of him that never, no longer exists. You're forgiving the version of him that no longer exists, the version of him that lives in here, my body, the version of him that still scares me, the one I want to be free from. And that night I released someone who no longer existed but who still had power in my memory, and that's the kind of forgiveness we have to talk about.

Speaker 1 40:06

What if forgiveness isn't reciprocated? Let's go straight to Romans 12, 18, because I remember it says so far as it depends on it, live peaceably with all. If we're going to scripture, we know what God is saying. There are two qualifiers there, if possible. Sometimes it's not possible to have that so far as it depends on you or the one responsible for your part, not theirs.

Choosing Freedom Over Bitterness

Speaker 1 40:38

Forgiveness is between you and Christ and it is not a guaranteed restoration of a relationship. You are not God, you are not the judge, you are not the savior. You are a steward of your own soul, of your own healing, of your own obedience to God. You forgave because it frees you in your relationship with God, not because they necessarily deserve it in your mind, but because Christ already paid for it for them and for you. And justice is never swept under heaven's rug. We don't get closure Closure is a myth. We get clarity, we get commitment, we get Christ. Forgiveness gives you peace instead of reactivity, wisdom instead of vengeance, strength instead of victimhood. But it is also layered. Forgiveness unfolds, it evolves, it deepens, it breaks you so mercy can take root in the places bitterness tried to grow. So I want to end on this. What if I don't feel like forgiving, because I hear that in session two? Then start again.

Speaker 1 41:56

Forgiveness is not perfection, it's persistence. You'll have days where you feel free and days where you feel like you're bleeding all over the place. But it's persistence. But it's persistence Every time you choose not to repay evil for evil, every time you name your pain instead of weaponizing it. Every time you cry out to God instead of cursing your betrayer, every time you cry out to God instead of attacking your betrayer, you're doing kingdom warfare work in the deepest places of your being. You're defying the enemy, you're echoing heaven's heart. You're becoming more and more like Christ, and isn't that the point?

Speaker 1 42:46

I think it's so important that we don't forget that. I think it's so important that we don't forget that the reality is that you have to decide. There are consequences for every decision that you make. You can choose I am going to hold on to unforgiveness and claim all the consequences that come with that, or I am going to choose forgiveness and claim the consequences that come with that. Or I am going to choose forgiveness and claim the consequences that come with that. And I will tell you if you hold on to anger, it becomes suppressed and that turns into depression.

Speaker 1 43:24

And I encourage you take this to the cross and remember that it takes time. Be patient with yourself. When you're reactive and it comes back up, that is a biological response. It doesn't mean you're being disobedient. But what you do when your logical brain comes back on and says hey, I realize I'm reactive right now.

Speaker 1 43:50

What you do with that is where you're headed, holding onto that anger and suppressing or saying God, come into this with me, inviting your partner, if you're still with them, to come into this with you Again. Not everyone gets reconciliation, but we can get forgiveness, and I encourage you today to go and meet with Jesus, to meet with Christ and invite him into the situation and talk to him about where your heart is with this, because the reality is, everything I shared with you is everything that I went through. There were moments where I was doing so good and then it would rear its ugly head, something would trigger me and it took time and patience to remember where I was at in the present moment, and so I encourage you and I leave that with you today and I thank you for listening.