How to Forgive Someone Who Has Hurt You
A path to freedom
Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting, pretending it’s not a big deal, or going back to how things were, but it can bring freedom from the heavy weight of resentment and bitterness.
In this episode of our ongoing series, How to Handle Life, Austin tackles one of the Bible’s hardest commands: forgiving someone who has hurt you. Jesus’ words from the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” sounds good, but it can feel impossible in the face of a painful offense.
Keep in mind that forgiveness isn’t the natural, human response to being hurt. In order to forgive, you will need God’s grace and strength, as well as a deep trust that one day he will bring justice to all wrongs done to you. The result? Relief from bitterness, the ability to move forward, and a visible sign of God’s kingdom breaking into everyday life.
Forgiving is much easier said than done, which is why we want to encourage and equip you to enter a process of forgiveness that leads to freedom and hope, one step at a time.
Highlights from this Episode
If you’ve been following along, you’ll remember we are in a series designed to give you practical steps and wisdom on how to handle common yet difficult life issues. We’ve covered coping with a panic attack, handling unanswered prayer, dealing with difficult people, and managing stress. In today’s episode, we are going to explore how to forgive someone who has hurt you, which might be one of the most difficult topics that we tackle in this series.
We’re doing this episode for two reasons. First, forgiveness is commanded by Jesus. When his disciples asked Jesus how to pray, Jesus tells them what is now known as the Lord’s Prayer. As conveyed in Luke 11, it includes the phrase “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Those of us who have given our allegiance to Jesus are commanded by him to forgive those who sin against us.
It’s helpful to define what biblical forgiveness looks like:
Biblical forgiveness is the voluntary decision to release a person from the debt of their sin or offense, mirroring God’s grace and mercy towards us through Christ. It is not a feeling, but a choice to let go of resentment, anger, and the desire for revenge.
In my experience personally and as a pastor and counselor, this command to forgive has often been misunderstood. This leads to the second reason for this episode: I want to clear up some misconceptions and provide clarity on how to forgive someone the way that Jesus commands.
Forgiveness is Wound Care
Imagine you’re cutting up some chicken in your kitchen and you slice your finger so deep that you need to go to the ER to get stitches. But the doctor didn’t disinfect your wound and a week or two later, it becomes infected. It’s red, swollen, and painful. What do you do? You could ignore the pain and tell yourself to move on.
If you do that, you’re going to get very sick and experience more pain in the long run. But what you’ll probably do is go back to the ER and have someone take the stitches out and clean the wound. Will that hurt? Absolutely. But that is good pain that will make you healthier in the long run.
The process of forgiving someone who hurt you is similar. When you get hurt, it’s like someone has wounded you. Forgiveness is the proper way to care for that wound. If you don’t forgive, the wound gets infected and becomes more painful in the long run.
I don’t take the hurts you’ve experienced lightly. I don’t know your story and how you’ve been hurt, but most likely you’ve been hurt in small ways and probably some bigger ways as well—maybe even things that are difficult to talk about. At the same time, the process that I’m about to describe does work.
A quick disclaimer so we’re on the same page: Forgiveness does not mean forgetting what happened to you, minimizing the hurt that was caused, or trying to return to “normal”. These steps aren’t quick and easy; they require hard work and God’s strength. The process of forgiveness takes time and may not go according to plan right away.
4 Practical Steps for Forgiveness
Step #1: Honestly assess and feel your hurt and then evaluate the type of person who has hurt you
Your first task is to assess the depth and seriousness of the wound—recognizing that you are the only one who gets to decide how painful it is. Rather than minimizing, ignoring, or rushing past the pain, you can name it, feel it, and bring it honestly before God through prayer, writing, or emotional expression. This isn’t usually a one-time process; pain may resurface over time and need to be acknowledged again.
After you’ve tended to your own pain, the next step is to assess the person who hurt you. Drawing from therapist Dan Allender’s framework in his book Bold Love, you’ll find that some people are “normal sinners” who can take responsibility and listen to the impact of their actions. Others are “fools” who minimize, dismiss, or rush past the pain they cause. Still others are “evil,” intentionally seeking to harm and even enjoying it.
This discernment matters because sharing the impact of your hurt is only wise when the other person is safe and receptive. If someone consistently minimizes, weaponizes, or exploits your pain, it may be both wise and necessary to withhold sharing and continue processing that hurt with God and with safe, supportive people instead.
If you are dealing with a normal sinner who can admit fault, you can move on to the next step.
Step #2: Ask the offender if they are willing to hear the impact their actions had on you
At this point, you’re not actually sharing your feelings. That’s next. You’re simply asking them if they are willing to parachute onto your island to hear and to see and to feel what it was like when they hurt you.
It’s important to tell them what you’re going to need from them if you share. This person needs to listen and validate your experience rather than minimizing or justifying it. There might be other things that you’ll need now or in the future, but the important thing in this first moment is to hear an acknowledgement from the person that they’re going to do these things. If so, you can move to the next step.
Step #3: Share the story and unload the pain with the offender or someone who can support your healing
This is the step where you unload the actual hurt from the past, whether that takes one ten-minute venting session or multiple conversations over weeks, depending on how deep the wound is. As you unload, you are honest and truthful about the hurt the other person caused you—telling the story of what happened from the beginning, chronologically, naming how it made you feel and how it affected you, not to decide who was right or wrong, but to help the other person understand.
This process can hurt, but it is necessary because you are bringing your pain into the light. With more serious wounds, you can give yourself time and grace, going slowly, sharing less rather than more, and involving a third party if needed. Though unloading this hurt is often the hardest step, it is also the most powerful and freeing, because it becomes the relief to pent-up bitterness and resentment.
Though unloading this hurt is often the hardest step, it is also the most powerful and freeing, because it becomes the relief to pent-up bitterness and resentment.
When you talk about your pain and feel heard and validated, healing begins, and you can move to the next step.
If the person who harmed you is not willing or able to hear the pain they have caused you, this step can be done with someone else who can listen, hear your story, and help bear the burden of the hurt you carry. As much as you may want to be able to do this with the person who has caused you pain, sharing your hurt with another trusted person can be just as healing and move you forward in the process of forgiveness.
Step #4: Clearly state your needs and boundaries for the future
This step involves creating and imagining a path forward with the other person. This is less of a hostage negotiation and more of a collaboration with the other person about what your relationship is going to look like going forward—assuming you still want a relationship with them. Hopefully, the person who has harmed you can extend a genuine apology for how they’ve hurt you, and you can tell the person who has hurt you: “I forgive you.”
Your relationship with them doesn’t have to go back to the way it was. In fact, it will likely be very different going forward. Sharing your wants and needs and hopes for the future provides clarity and ensures that they can’t claim they didn’t know what you needed. Use the framework “Would you be willing…” to make your request, and be ready to flex and flow and adjust your expectations if they aren’t able or willing to honor it.
Forgiveness Requires Strength Beyond Willpower
If you try to do these steps with sheer willpower alone, you might make a good start, but you’re not going to finish the way that you want to. Your willpower is a limited commodity and it’s not as reliable as you think it is. Instead, it’s important to look outside of yourself for strength.
There are three Bible verses that can help with this. First, Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not in your own understanding.” To trust in the Lord with all your heart and to lean on God’s understanding is to not be controlled by your instinctual retaliatory responses for justice if you’re hurt.
But you don’t need to give up your desire for justice. That’s captured in the second verse. Romans 12:19 says, “Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord.” The Lord is very much concerned with justice, even more than you and I are. But it will happen in his time and his way, and you can trust him to balance the scales.
This leads to the third and final verse: Isaiah 41:10 says, “I will strengthen you.” In the immediate context, God is talking to the people of Israel, but this also applies to you as an individual. It’s in the future tense, which means it’s ongoing. God is going to strengthen you in your life and in your relationships. He does for you what another person can never do.
God is going to strengthen you in your life and in your relationships. He does for you what another person can never do.
Even in the best-case scenario, the most well-intentioned and repentant person can only go so far in bringing healing, restitution, justice, and making amends. They may genuinely work to change, speak more kindly, act more thoughtfully, or even offer tangible help for past hurts—and that matters. But sooner or later, they will still let you down, because they are fallible, sinful, and imperfect, just like you.
All too often, people who have been hurt don’t receive full justice or healing in this life. That’s why it’s foundational for you to look to God first. He is the one who strengthens you, upholds you, and knows every hurt that has been done to you and ever will be. In the end, he is the one who will make all things right and wipe away every tear.
The Blessings of Forgiveness
When you commit to the process of forgiveness, two things can happen. First, forgiveness brings relief. It may even bring relief to the other person, releasing them from guilt, but it most certainly brings relief to you. Hurt is like an open wound or a heavy, burning coal that weighs you down and scalds your soul. When you forgive, you give that wound and that coal to Jesus. The wound may leave a scar but you are no longer consumed by it.
The second result is that God’s kingdom is made visible here and now. When you freely forgive, you put on display what it looks like when heaven comes to earth. Forgiveness becomes a lived reality, a new way of living that shows what it looks like when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
Recommended Resources:
WYITW podcast episode: The Roots of Bitterness
WYITW podcast episode: Managing the Weeds of Forgiveness
Bold Love by Dan Allender
When You’ve Been Wronged: Moving From Bitterness to Forgiveness by Pastor Erwin Lutzer