Dealing With Past Hurts & Unforgiveness

Being deeply hurt or mistreated by a friend or an enemy, past emotional, mental or physical abuse, can cause so many inner problems. I have had my share of such experiences. Bitterness, anger and unforgiveness are typical responses to such injustices suffered, but as these reactions hinder our walk with Christ, the Bible gives us ample instructions on how to overcome them.



Keep No Record of Wrongs
Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.  Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:18-19)

This passage provides a vivid description of a life damaged by past hurts – a life that has become a wasteland, a desert. Dwelling upon a record of wrongs weighs us down and heavily burdens us. But the Lord’s instructions to forget those former things and not dwell on them, comes with a beautiful promise. Letting them go releases streams of living water into our life and enables God to do a new work in us.

One of the greatest new works Christ does in our lives is to bring us to a place where we can forgive those who have hurt us. This is such an important aspect of our daily Christian walk that Jesus included it as part of the Lord’s prayer. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. (Luke 11:4)

Instead of dwelling on past hurts, we can let go of those memories and forgive the person that hurt us. Although we cannot make ourselves forget the memories, if we stop clinging to them the painful associations will fade significantly.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,  Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; (I Cor 13:4-5)

I would like to share something practical that helped me to forget such things. I had been hurt so deeply by someone very dear to me that for a long time I was unable to let go of the pain and associated anger. Then one day I wrote onto a piece of paper a list of the things that they had done to hurt me. Then I folded the paper in two (restricting my access to it) and put it in a box that I couldn’t easily get to, under my bed. Once I had that written memoir of those wrongs, I no longer felt a need to keep a mental record of them. I let that folded page carry those memories instead of my mind. After a while the anger faded away and I was able to forgive that person, and as time passed those memories became void, along with the pain that was associated with them.


“But it is Part of Who I am…”

One reason I had trouble letting go of past hurts was because they had become part of my identity. “I am this way because of how that person mistreated me,” was an excuse I believed. I feared that if I let go of the anger and record of wrongs and forgave the person who had hurt me, I would lose a part of myself, part of my very individuality.

However, Jesus taught me that such fears were unfounded, that I did not have to hold onto past hurts in order to maintain my identity. He showed me that there was another option - to allow His love and forgiveness to flow from me towards the person who hurt me. And when I did this, instead of anger and the record of past wrongs being part of who I was, Christ’s love and forgiveness became part of my identity.

If someone were to meet me and hear my testimony now, they would not hear me say, “I am this way because of how that person mistreated me.” Instead, they would see that I have forgiven the person who wounded me, and in fact love them so dearly, still. If they were to ask me how this could be, I would answer, “I am this way because of Christ’s work of love and forgiveness in my life.”

When we let Christ's love and forgiveness become part of who we are, we change and become more like Christ. And is that not our goal, to become more like Him?   Galatians 2:20 says “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

As we learn to surrender our lives to Christ, He can give us such a powerful revelation of His love for us that we can view others through His loving gaze rather than through our own eyes. I have experienced this very powerfully in my life.

If we could learn to all be like Steven was when he was wrongly being stoned to death.  His unforgiving spirit overshadows how horrific his death was.

What a wonderful testimony this is to the power of God’s love. When others see us forgive - even love - those who have hurt us, they see the power of God’s kingdom in action, and their lives are changed too.


Harboring Unforgiveness Hurts Ourselves

If we have been deeply hurt by someone in the past, we earnestly desire to flee that pain and be set free from the wounds. A thought that I would like us to bear in mind is that by consciously or unconsciously harboring anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness towards that person, we unwittingly participate in keeping those wounds fresh and unable to heal. That is one reason that Jesus spoke so often of the importance of forgiving those who have wronged us. By not forgiving them, we hurt ourselves even further.


To Forgive Others, Reflect On How Much God Has Forgiven Us

The most liberating Biblical truth that helps us to forgive those who have treated us unjustly is to recognize the depths to which God has forgiven us.

Why does the Bible say, ^“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” in  Matthew 6:14? It is because for us to refuse to forgive others after God has forgiven our massive debts towards Him, shows a lack of appreciation of how much God has forgiven us.

We all know of the parable in Matthew 18:21-35, where a servant who owed millions of dollars to a king, had that debt cancelled when he asked for mercy. The servant then went on to throw a fellow servant that owed him a few dollars into prison, because he had not paused to reflect on the mercy the king had extended towards him.

This is the key to forgiving others. Although it is a perfectly understandable reaction to say about someone who hurt us very deeply, "I can't ever forgive them for what they did to me!" However, as we reflect on just how much God has forgiven us, which is heaps, then it becomes easier for us to forgive others, regardless of what they did to us.

So, regardless of how much we have been hurt by others, let us forgive them. If God forgives us of our numerous sins towards Him, we can forgive others of their (comparatively) lesser sins towards us.

And then we will be sons and daughters of God, revealing His nature to a hurting world, as it shows us in Luke 6:35-36 “But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.  Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”