Coming to Christ

How do I forgive someone who hurt me?

The short answer

Forgiveness is not pretending the wound did not happen, excusing what was wrong, or necessarily restoring trust to someone who is still dangerous. It is choosing to release your right to revenge, and to hand the debt over to God rather than carry it yourself. It is usually not a single feeling but a decision you make, sometimes daily, until the bitterness loosens its grip. Christians forgive not because the offense was small, but because they have been forgiven so much themselves.

It helps to say clearly what forgiveness is not, because false ideas of it keep people trapped. Forgiving does not mean saying the wrong was acceptable, denying your pain, or forcing yourself to feel warmth you do not feel. It is not the same as reconciliation, which takes two, and it does not require handing an unsafe person the power to hurt you again.

“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”
Ephesians 4:32

How it actually works

Forgiveness is first a decision, not a feeling: a choice to stop demanding payment for a debt you cannot collect anyway, and to entrust justice to God, who sees what was done far more clearly than you do. The feelings often follow the decision slowly. You may have to forgive the same wound many times as the memory returns, and that is not failure; it is the work of forgiving.

“Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”
Colossians 3:13

The engine of it all is grace. Christians are told to forgive as they have been forgiven, and the size of what God has released in us makes what we release in others possible. You are not asked to summon forgiveness from nothing, but to pass on what you have already received.

It comes back to Jesus

None of this is quick or easy, and God is patient with how long it takes. If you cannot yet forgive, you can begin by asking Jesus, who forgave his own executioners from the cross, to give you what you do not have. Bitterness is a heavy thing to carry. He is offering to help you set it down.