What If You Haven’t Actually Forgiven Them Yet?

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In this episode of Intentional Breakthrough, Tania Hilton and Charity Gurtler continue their conversation on emotional and spiritual walls by exploring how forgiveness becomes one of the first steps toward healing. They talk about why the same wound, person, or memory may keep coming up, how healing happens in layers, and why unforgiveness can keep us stuck even when we don’t realize it.

You’ll hear practical steps for asking God who you need to forgive, how to release the impact of what happened, and what to do when forgiveness feels impossible. Charity also shares why sometimes the first step is simply becoming “willing to be willing.”

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Transcript

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Forgiveness is not, doesn't happen in a moment. There's some things that are so deep. It's gonna take layers of forgiveness, layers and layers, and it's gonna take time to go to those layers. And I just want to let you know that I believe God has so much grace for that. He has so much compassion and understanding for that. Like it's okay. It's okay to feel the things that you feel. It's okay to feel hate and the rage and all those things. Those aren't things that we want to, those are things we want to heal from, but it's understandable and the feelings are understandable and they're valid. And I just want to let people know that. And so when I work with people with forgiveness and we're we're struggling with something that's pretty deep and pretty heavy, that feels really, really difficult to forgive. I often will just say, like, let's just go after the first layer today. And the first layer may just be being willing to be willing. If you would like to stay up to date and get notified of when new episodes, blog posts, or resources are available, click on the subscribe link in the description. Please leave a comment with ideas or questions, or email us at questions at intentionalbreakthrough.com. We would love to hear from you and we'll include them in future QA episodes. For more information on these topics, visit intentional breakthrough.com. And for more information on a guided prayer session, visit anchored biblical counseling.org. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Welcome back to Intentional Breakthrough. This is Tanya Hilton, and I'm here with my friend Charity Gertler. And last episode, we were talking about walls, and we were talking a little bit about how to identify walls and what what does a wall do? How does it impact our life? Kind of that splinter, the symptom that we're looking for. So on this episode, maybe we talk a little bit about um how do walls come down? So we know how to identify them, but how are you gonna get those walls down? Yeah, I think um sometimes just just pressing in, going, you know, going before the Lord, being willing to let down control, being willing to be vulnerable. But even then, I've noticed it can be really hard to to get them down. It can take a lot of time. Yeah. Yeah. So I've noticed one of the biggest things that starts that process is forgiveness, is okay going before the Lord and just saying, okay, God, who do I need to forgive? Like you tell me, you show me. And sometimes I I know it's like an obvious thing, like, oh, I know I need to forgive this person, but I also just make sure I ask him, like, God, who do you think I need to forgive? Because there's names and things that come up that I want to come up with on my own. And as I follow his leading, yeah. Yeah. I get this all the time though. And I know you do too. So you ask the Lord, who do I need to forgive? So let's just say we're working with a client and we're and we say, you know, who do you need to forgive? And they're like, Well, my dad's coming up in my mind, but I've forgiven him like a hundred times. I've already forgiven him. So you get that too. You get the person that's like, yeah, I don't know why I keep thinking about, you know, that my best friend when I was in elementary school that stole my lunch money. I've already forgiven her. How do you, how do you address? So then let's we go to the very beginning. We have to go to the foundation, which is forgiveness. How do you address the person who says, I've already forgiven them? I just say, like, well, if that's coming up, it's coming up for a reason. Like, let's just follow the breadcrumbs. Let's just go because what I've learned about healing is it happens in layers. And so, yeah, we maybe you may have forgiven somebody at one layer, but we're going to layer two now. We're going to layer three. Maybe it's layer 100. I don't know. There's a lot of layers, but the the depth that the Lord takes us through is so much deeper and so much more profound than we are even aware of. And it's a couple episodes ago, we were trying we were um talking about that child that had the splinter and you wanted to get it out. And the the child was like, no, no, I don't want you to get it out. Like kind of freaking out about what the pain would have to go through for you to get that splinter out. It's trust. Trust the Lord. If your dad, if that client, like their dad's coming up in their mind, just say, let's just go to after a deeper layer, something more. The Lord might be trying to like pull something more up, which is only gonna bring more healing. The Lord only reveals so that He can heal. I say that all the time. He only reveals so that He can heal. And so if someone's coming up that you've already forgiven, go there. Let the Lord take you to a deeper layer because you're only gonna get deeper healing and deeper freedom out of it. Yeah, that's so beautiful. You know, you gave me this um this image once because I asked you, I said, why does this certain thing keep coming up? So why does this certain like lie keep coming up? Or maybe it's not a lie, maybe it was a stronghold, maybe it was forgiveness. And you gave me this imagery of a garden. And so we have this beautiful garden in our backyard, and there's weeds over here, and there's weeds over here, and then there's weeds scattered throughout the place. So you might uh dig up forgiveness in one area of the garden bed of this person, right? And then you're like, okay, great, I just cleaned up this garden, and then you look over and you're like, oh, well, here's another part of the garden. And so at first, I I would take it as, well, this keeps coming up. It either didn't work the first time, right? Or I'm not doing it right, right? So for me, it's like I'm not doing something right. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So it's like it is an I love the imagery of layers and gardens. It's like, okay, you just clean up this side of the garden bed and let's go to the other because it it might your dad and forgiveness may have been a different wound and a different area of your garden. I love that. Yes, I love that too, because it it gives hope for the person that they're taking ground because our hearts are like a garden. I talk about that a lot. Um, just like the Lord uses that analogy all throughout scripture about planting seeds, uprooting seeds, building, you know, all these things. And he, like the parable of the sower, he says, the kingdom of heaven is like a farmer who scattered seed. And it talks about the different types of soil and how the seeds can grow. And so our hearts are that soil, you know, our and so out going before the Lord and just asking him to tend to that garden of our heart and like maybe pull up some of the thorns, you know, out of the soil and plant some of the things that he wants in our heart. That's what we're doing as we walk with him. And so it's like, it's like uh we cultivate this part of our of our garden. Like this, this part of the of the garden of our heart is cultivated. We pulled up the weeds and the thorns and got some big boulders out of the way. We've tilled the soil, we've put fertilizer in there, allowed the Lord to plant different um seeds that were that are going to produce fruit and grow. And now the Lord's like, oh, that's you know, let's go to the next part of the let's go to the next part of the walk with the Lord. Yeah, if you walk with the Lord for any length of time, you'll realize, oh, this is an ongoing process. This process of sanctification is ongoing for the rest of my life. It's part of the deal. But it's a really beautiful once you start to understand how masterful he is and how kind he is and how good he is and how much blessing you get in your life when the fruit starts growing. You're like, oh, this is good. I like this fruit, you know, and you start to submit more to his leading and it becomes better and easier, you know, the more you trust him. But yeah, so I'll tell people, like, yeah, we we dealt with shame. We dealt with um the lies of shame and some forgiveness here in this section of your heart. So now we're going into a new section, but you get to reap the fruit of this first one, but now we're gonna go to a new one and cultivate that garden of your heart. Yeah. And so yeah, it's a fair. And if you do, if you do the process, you know, you think about like a garden. Back in Virginia, it was a lot easier for me to garden outside. I've killed just about everything except for the stuff I actually brought inside lately. I've been doing, but I can still think about my garden in Virginia. And I would love to plant rose bushes. Like that was my thing. That's what I could grow so easy. But if you've ever gardened, you know that the weeds are always going to try to come up. They're always going to try to like, you know, stuff or snuff out what you plant. And so it's important for you to pull up the weeds, right? It is an ongoing forever process. And when you first start, it's so daunting because you've got so much work to do, right? But then the more that you do it, the cleaner your garden gets so that when you see a weed start sprouting, you can identify it very quickly and you can pull it out very quickly as long as you don't let it sit faster. That is a huge part that I've noticed. I'm so grateful for when I started, it was overwhelming. It was just like I use this analogy a lot. I was like, I felt like I was in the middle of a jungle and I would pull this root up and pull this one and chop this tree out. And and the Lord was doing this, you know. But I was like allowing him to do this work in my life and and tilling this, and I'd step back and see a jungle. Like it was a jungle. And then I would just keep going, keep going. I felt like I was doing so much of this work, um, allowing the Lord to do the work in me, really. But yeah, but then now I can truly say like I live life with large sections cultivated, and I see fruit and it's so fun. And when I notice something that's like not right, I'm like, oh, oh, I'll take care of this right now. It's just a little thing I can take care of it. And you know, I'm feeling anxious about something, like, why am I feeling anxious? That's not a normal thing for me anymore. And so I ask the Lord, why am I anxious in this area? And I pull that weed up and we're good. So it is eventually, you know, you start to grow and have more cultivation. It's really nice. Yes. To have more. All right. So if we're using the garden analogy and the weeds have to come up, then the analogy would say that unforgiveness is the grasp on the roots that keep the weeds from coming up. So let's talk a little bit about that because it all starts with forgiveness. And that's hard, especially when you're walking with somebody who's had, you know, really hard things happen to them where people have done terrible things against them. Forgiveness is hard. And then again, there's a piece of it where you're like, well, I feel like I forgave them. I I've walked through the process, like I've said it, I forgive you, but they don't actually feel it and mean it. So talk a little bit about too, because here's another one that's really hard. They don't want to. How do you forgive somebody that you don't want to forgive because you feel like they haven't paid the price enough? Does that make sense? Right. That's a lot of questions. Well, I'll start with um what I what I the way I've grown to look at forgiveness. So forgiveness was probably the biggest stronghold over my life on forgiveness that I had to work through. And I was very, very, very stuck, you know. And so I I'll just start from the beginning. So I was just so stuck, and I truly, truly did not think I was an unforgiving person. I didn't even think that. I thought that I let things go and I didn't hold on to grudges and you know, there'd maybe little things here and there, I'd be annoyed or whatever, but like I didn't think that I was an unforgiving per person. That's how stuck I was. And I got really, really um, really bound. I was really stuck with depression and all that. And I I've talked about that in earlier episodes. And there was this conversation though I had with a friend. Um, there was a night, I feel like I didn't, I couldn't make it through the night. And I talked with a friend, I was just looking for anything to help me, like anything at all. And the friend on the phone said, I think you need to start forgiving people. And I remember hearing that, and my first thought was honestly, it wasn't like I was defensive or anything. I was like, I I don't think I need to forgive anyone. I don't know. I'm a Christian, I forgive every day, right? Yeah. I let things go. I truly didn't think that. And so I got off the phone, but that thought just kept coming, kept coming, kept coming. And I was just like, well, I'm desperate enough to try anything, like literally try anything. And so I um went before the Lord and and just had a notebook in front of me and said, Okay, God, do you think I need to forgive anyone? And I still remember that blank sheet in front of me, and a name popped in my head. So I wrote it down. I was like, okay, I guess there's like a little thing there. I could forgive nothing begging out. So I'm like, okay, I I forgive this person, I forgive them. I released them from judgment, wiped their slate clean. I like using those words sometimes. I was like, okay, what did you forgive them for? I'm just curious. This was years ago. I don't know if I can remember. I just remember the story. And I remember, I'll tell you, I remember a few names on there, which I'm not gonna, you know, bring out. Yeah. So I asked the Lord, I think it was like a friend for like slighting me. It's like I they may not even be meant to do it. It was like something little, it was like something like I shouldn't need to forgive him for that, but like maybe I should, you know, I guess I can eat you if the Lord's bringing the name up. So I asked the Lord if there's anybody else, and another name came up to my head and another one and another one. And like an hour and a half went by and that whole sheet was filled with names. And it was, I was stunned by the end of it because I didn't see that coming. And of course, there's that part of your mind that's like, oh, you're making this up, you know? But if I was honest with myself, which I was at that time, I was desperate enough to be honest with myself. I realized I felt a lot better, like I felt a lot lighter. So I was like, okay, there's something to this forgiveness thing. And so I began just incorporating that as a part of my life. I was like, okay, God, who do you think I need to forgive and what do I need to forgive them for? And walking through that. And so I think I had to lay down my mind a little bit and control and just trust the Lord's process in it and let him. So at this point, he'll bring up names that I've forgiven a hundred times. But I'm just like, okay, there must be something more there. We're going to a deeper layer, we're going to a new part of the garden and just trusting that. Um there's two questions. Yeah, two questions I have for you that I'm thinking about. Um this one, I don't know which one's easier. So I'll just I'm gonna throw them both out. So one is like, how can you identify that you haven't forgiven someone? And I get this all the time. And so maybe I can help answer the second one, but I get this all the time of like you just said, because I said, What did you have to forgive them for? And you're like, I don't know, a slight that maybe they didn't even like I shouldn't have been offended by the slight, but I felt like I need to forgive them. So what I get all the time too is uh somebody will say something like, Well, my mom is coming up, but I don't think I need to forgive her. Like I shouldn't feel that I have to forgive her because what she did wasn't wrong, or like I'm the one who got offended by the feeling and it's she didn't do anything wrong. A great question. So we're we gotta define forgiveness. What is forgiveness? Yes, right? Forgiveness, I mean it might be easier to define what it's not. Forgiveness is not um ignoring the problem. Forgiveness is not um sticking your head in the sand, it's not denying that something happened. Forgiveness is not like is not saying what's saying it doesn't matter or saying it's okay. Forgiveness is acknowledging that there's something that hurt, that caused me pain, that anger, frustration, whatever it is. I held on to some level of judgment that was not not a healthy kind of judgment towards that person. And I'm choosing to release my judgment against that person so that we, I, we are clear. Um, it doesn't mean that what they did wasn't wrong. It's still wrong, and that's between them and God. But I'm saying I'm releasing my judgment against that person. Yeah. And what I hold against them. It's also the flip side because there's a piece of it that that somebody did actually wrong you, right? There's a piece of it. There's another piece, and so I'm just thinking like a husband and wife, where um the wife went out to run errands and she got herself a coffee and then came home and didn't bring a coffee for her husband. She didn't impact, that's what I'm looking for. Intention versus impact. Okay, the intention is saying this person meant to hurt me. So your spouse went and got coffee and didn't bring you. It's saying it's not saying, well, they meant to ignore me. But the impact is, well, my my spouse went out and got coffee and then bring me one. Oh, that hurt a little bit. You can see the impact. Yes. Yeah. It's releasing that judgment. So if if uh someone slighted you and maybe they didn't mean to do it, you know, like not getting your coffee, you still grabbed onto something in your heart, like offense or judgment or whatever it is, and you're saying, I choose to release that. Whether they meant to do it or not. Can you see how this I'm sure you can see this, the connection. So I'm trying to think about the spouse who did not get a coffee. What so they get offended, they got hurt. You know, again, we're not we're not going to assign intentions because we can't assume to know what people think. But the impact is my spouse didn't get me coffee. They went out and they got coffee of themselves. Well, why does it hurt? They don't love me. I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough. You know, that this is so there's lies that are attached to that. I'm not gonna jump too far ahead because I I'm seeing like the connection. We forgive the impact, not the intention at times. There's times where we know people, their intentions were bad against us, right? That it's like we don't have to assume. But if somebody has hurt you and has impacted you, and maybe we could say, well, they didn't mean to, so I don't need to forgive them. No, you forgive the impact, not the intentions. Exactly. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yep. You're releasing the impact. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. You're releasing the impact, whether the if they had good intentions or not. It doesn't matter. Like it still impacted you. Forgiveness, truly, truly, that's why we need to define this. It's about you. It's about me. It's what I'm doing with this hurt, this offense, with the with this information. What am I doing about it? It's not about the other person, really. It's about I am releasing. I am choosing not to partner with a spirit of unforgiveness or spirit of offense or judgment. I am choosing to release that. I talked to when I talked to my kids about it, when I explained it to them when they were younger, I would say forgiveness is really choosing whose team you're gonna be on. So do you wanna be on the enemy's team or do you want to be on Jesus' team? At the end of the day, the most simplified form of forgiveness really is whose team do you want to play for? Because when we step into on forgiveness or offense or holding on to the bitterness or whatever it is, we are literally playing for the enemy's team. We're coming into agreement with that sort sort of thing. We forgiveness is drawing a line in the sand and saying the enemy's team is over here. I'm on Jesus' team. He calls his kids to forgive and he gives us the grace to do it. He walked it out himself. We are choosing to be on his team and say, I forgive. Now it's not saying, it's not excusing behavior. That's really important. We're not excusing what the person did or pretending it didn't exist or pretending it didn't happen or going into denial or whatever else. That's not forgiveness. Forgiveness is being in a place of reality and truth and acceptance, yet still choosing to forgive and release from our heart that judgment because we follow Christ and we're disciples of Jesus. Yeah. That's forgiveness. And what we're what we're really doing too is we're saying that I don't have, I always go back to this. Um, an eye for an eye says the Lord, but justice is mine. We don't have the authority to cast judgment on other people. In fact, it says in scripture, like, don't be judging, because the the Lord is the only one who is has the authority to judge. And so forgiveness is just saying I'm releasing judgment and I'm placing this at the foot of the cross so that God can do whatever it is that God does with this, right? So it's just saying, like, I don't have the authority to judge, and I'm giving it back to God. Yeah. Yeah, right. And really quick here, it's worth throwing in there judgment. There is a healthy judgment, like I'm judging the right decision to make and and using discernment. And we're not talking about that judgment. We're talking about the casting stones judgment and yeah, yeah, holding something against someone offense, that type of thing. That judgment is not ours. That's the Lord's. Um that's it's his decision. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then my second question, my second question for you, which is a little harder, is how do I identify that I have unforgiveness in my heart? So I'm a good, I'm a good Christian woman that goes to the cross every Sunday, that casts, you know, confession and absolution every Sunday, but I have unforgiveness in my heart. How do I identify that? Like what are symptoms you'd see in your life? Yeah. Or how do you find out who to forgive? Um, well, I think how we find out who to forgive is Christ. Yeah. Yeah. You just ask the Lord. Um, and be willing to just forgive anyone he brings to your mind, or just even be willing just to forgive. If even if you can't hear the Lord at first, like, God, who should I forgive? And it's just a blank that happens. Um, I'll just leave people to just walk through forgiveness, like kind of the basic stuff. Like, okay, I forgive my mom and my dad. Moms and dads are never perfect, guys. They were never meant to be perfect. Okay. They can love you and they can be awesome and great parents, but there's still things to forgive them for because they're human. And I've come to that realization that God never, never expected parents to be perfect. He never expected moms and dads to fulfill every need a child has because he knew he could do that for each child. And so we we all need to go to the Lord and find healing for the imperfections our parents had, however good or not good they were. But the Lord can meet all of those things. So we all, we all need to forgive at some level, some area of our lives. Like that's what I've realized. It's just it's a thing. Yeah. And I think if if you're struggling with different areas of your life and feeling blocks and feeling stuck and feeling overwhelmed, oh yeah, for sure, unforgiveness is there. And I and I say that in the utmost grace and compassion and empathy because I've lived that and I am living it still. I still have people I need to forgive. The Lord brings stuff up to me all the time. The only like I'm just tending that guard in my heart daily. And there's just, it's just, I say that with so much grace because the enemy is really good at what he does. He's really good at throwing things our way. He's really good at even causing us to not even see that we need to forgive someone. And you know, our heart is deceitful above all else. You know, it says that in the word. And so he's it's I say that with the utmost compassion and empathy, and I'm in the trenches with you type of um perspective that yeah, there's there's gonna be unforgiveness there. So so you know, like our a couple episodes again, uh, we talked about being in the word daily. Like if this is not a spiritual discipline that you have, is that you need to be in the word daily. I would, I would also then say, um, like one of the spiritual disciplines that you can have is first thing in the morning or before you go to bed at night, whichever one works for you. Stop, give yourself 10, 15 minutes and just say, Lord, who do I need to forgive today? I mean, this is the the guarded fork that we can just dig out. And this is not something I do that I actually am like challenging myself. Maybe I should do this because already there's people coming to my mind. Okay. Yeah. I have to already coming to mind. Okay. Yeah. So that could be a spiritual discipline. It is. It's become one for me. When I have seen the gosh, the fruit, the change, the transformation that happens in my life when I allow the Lord to work at these deeper levels of my heart. Like when we go to the root of things and he brings healing, how that translates into my, not just my mood, my emotions, my ability to connect with the Lord, receive from him, receive his love, joy, peace, his strategies, his direct, his directions. But that starts to translate into my life. Like it starts to overflow into my life. And there's still hard things that come my way, but man, I'm telling you, when I face those hard things, it is so different feeling that connection with the Lord and hearing him tell me he loves me in the midst of it and giving me strategies and direction. Like it is just so different. So yeah, I I have embraced this as a daily discipline of I go before the Lord, I say, okay, God, are there anyone I need to forgive? And is there any lies I've believed? Is there anything blocking me in this area of my heart and just kind of tending that garden, maintaining it, maintaining that garden and gaining new ground, you know? We gain new ground all the time. So so I want to give our listeners practical steps and baby steps, right? Because when you when you're doing this daily and you do it for weeks, months, years, it starts becoming just like second nature to you. But for somebody who's very new to this, um, practical steps, I would say that there's two steps with forgiveness. And then of course, this is not cookie cutter, you can't mess it up. Like you just go to the Lord and He will guide you in every step. But if you, if our listeners wanted to have like a notepad, I love journals. Uh, you don't have to have a journal, you could do it in your head. But it would be two questions. Who do I need to forgive? What do I need to forgive them for? And then so you sit with the Lord for a minute. Okay, Lord, who do I need to forgive? Um, and I'm just gonna make something up. Like, I need to forgive my dog today. Okay, it's like, what do I need to forgive them for? I need to forgive them for eating my shoes, my my dog. She's seven, she's still eating my shoes. Oh, that actually happened to me. Did it really? Well, you have a puppy at home too. So oh my goodness. Okay, so maybe I'll walk you through it. Who do you need to forgive? Your dog. Okay. But so then what does that look like? So imagine I'm gonna have you take over. And so if charity right now is forgiving somebody for an offense, and again, we can use the dog so that people aren't like, I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings. Use your dog, what does it look like? Give our listeners like a practical step of what that looks like, walking through forgiving. One of your questions earlier was how to not just forgive in your head, but forgive in your heart. And I think that's this process does that. This process is when you just ask the Lord to show you, you're putting yourself into like this vulnerable, willing to receive humble posture. And I think that helps get you into that heart place where you're encountering the Lord and not just thinking about Him. And so I just I do I still have a blank piece of paper sometimes and I'll just say, okay, God, who do I need to forgive? And I just kind of sit in that place and then, oh, okay, someone comes to my mind or I remember something that happened or whatever. And I just write, I write it down, and writing it down just helps focus my mind, you know, to not get so distracted. And so I write this process down and it's like, okay, what I need to forgive them for. And I'm in that place with the Lord already because I'm receiving from Him, and that gets me into that heart area where I need the healing the most. And so it gets me out of the head and into that heart place. And so I say, okay, I forgive, I choose to forgive this person. And sometimes it feels a little bit stuck. I'll just say it over and over until okay, it's it's released. Like I feel like it's gone, and I lay it down before the Lord and forgive them. And I just want to speak really quickly. Um, oh, and then I always say, What up, what for? Is there anything else? Is there anything else? Is there anyone else? And I ask over and over until I'm like, oh, okay, feel like that layer is clear. And it's just a layer. There's gonna be more, and there's gonna be more sections of the garden later, but for this layer for today, that feels taken care of, you know? Yeah. And it keeps that clarity, that connection with the Lord open and strong. And oh my goodness, there's no other way I'd rather go through life than feeling connected to the Lord and hearing him speak to me and and hearing it, feeling his love for me. Like there's no other way to go through life. And so this is the process to develop that. But I do want to speak really quick because I've gone through things in my life that has been very, very difficult to forgive. Um, there are certain things I've gone through that at the moment felt unforgivable. And there's even things, there's many, many people I've walked through that have gone through worse things. Um, there's some people that have gone through things that I would never even say on a podcast. They're just so atrocious. They're so beyond, they're so beyond what you think would be possible for someone to do to someone else. And so I just want to say like this, I don't take this lightly. I don't speak about this lightly. I understand that this is a very, very deep and real topic and issue for people. And it's um it's a very, it's a very holy place. Like it's very sacred. And and God, I just want to say God loves you. He loves whatever people have been through in spite of the shame, in spite of thing the things people have heaped on on you. And I just want to let anyone know that's in situations, in situations where it's very difficult to forgive things, like that's okay. That's okay. Forgiveness is not, doesn't happen in a moment. There's some things that are so deep, it's gonna take layers of forgiveness, layers and layers, and it's gonna take time to go to those layers. And I just want to let you know that I believe God has so much grace for that. He has so much compassion and understanding for that. Like it's okay. It's okay to feel the things that you feel. It's okay to feel hate and the rage and all those things. Those aren't things that we want to, we, those are things we want to heal from, but it's understandable and the feelings are understandable and they're valid. And I just want to let people know that. And so when I work with people with forgiveness and we're we're struggling with something that's pretty deep and pretty heavy that feels really, really difficult to forgive. I often will just say, like, let's just go after the first layer today. And the first layer may just be being willing to be willing. And there's actually somebody I worked with about that um a couple of years ago. And she was just at the bottom of a rope, couldn't go any further, totally stuck, marriage on the rocks, like, and everything was just stuck. And she's just so desperate. She's like, okay, fine, I'll just do, I'll just what can we do? And we I started talking about forgiveness, and she's like, I can't forgive this issue. Like she had gone through a really big betrayal. She's like, I don't think I can, it's even possible. I can't do it. And I talked with her and I said, Would you be willing to be willing? You know, just to trust the Lord, just to trust what he says, and just to trust his love for you. We don't need to go after everything today, but would you be willing to be willing today? And she thought about it and she's like, I'm gonna be honest with you. This was her response to me. I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't think it's possible. I don't think God can even change my heart to forgive. But fine, I'm willing to be willing. And that's what that was our whole first session. That's what we talked about. And she and she said, I'm willing to be willing to forgive this person. And that's it, that's all she could do. But I just want to say, like, that started a beautiful journey of walking with her through some really deep things and seeing the Lord bring deeper and deeper layers of healing. We we worked together for probably about nine months, and along the way, she received so much healing from shame and depression. And eventually she was able to fully forgive. And it was just like a miracle, you know. The Lord, that being willing to be willing, it's almost like it sets our gaze on the Lord. It it positions us to be able to receive from him and he can do miracles. Being willing to be willing is sometimes that's all we all we have, and that's enough. That's enough. And so the Lord is the one that does that work in us. You're absolutely right. And I think that one of the keys about unforgiveness is that I'm gonna lay it out there. Um, we don't trust that the person who's harmed us is gonna get justice, right? So what we're saying with forgiveness, it's not even for the other person. It's for you to say, I trust that the Lord is gonna handle this in any way he sees fit. And so the willing to be willing is saying, Lord, I trust you and I'm gonna lay it at the foot of the cross. And so that sometimes even that's the language that I use, like if it's such a big thing that are like, well, I can't even forgive this person because one, they've never even said sorry. That's the hardest thing, too, is like trying to forgive somebody who's not even sorry for what they did to you. But forgiveness is saying, Lord, I trust you and I trust this hurt, and I'm gonna lay this at the foot of the cross. So I forgive this person for whatever they've done to me. I lay it at the foot of the cross and I I I release them from judgment and I wipe their slate clean. And it's all all it's saying is, and I love this because Nathan says it too. He's like, it's taking their foot off their off their neck. It's saying, I'm no longer going to seek justice because I trust that the Lord's in charge and he's gonna take over. So that might be the first, that might be the first step is just saying, Lord, I trust you and I release it to you at the foot of the cross. Yeah. Yeah, I'll I love that. I love that. Um, there's a verse in in First Peter that says, Um, we cast all our cares on him because he cares for us. Yeah, and sometimes that's what we need to do. And just like listing, I'll even tell people, just list out the pain, the betrayal, the hurt, the rejection, the fear, and just like, God, I feel all these things and they're so heavy and so weighty, but here they are. Like I'm casting my cares on you. Will you take them? And I've just seen that happen. And it's just like, because sometimes the wound is so raw, it's hard to even think about processing forgiveness. And so laying that before the Lord and knowing that he's there to take them and just lift them. I've seen people do that and just even in moments, just feel like, oh, I can do this. Like it's not so raw anymore. The Lord's there to heal, and then they're able to just, you know, walk into some of that forgiveness. And so it's in reminder, like the forgiveness, it's for it's for us. I think most of us know that at this point, but it's for us. Um, that's the the other person's walk, it's between them and the war and the Lord, but forgiveness is releasing us from the vitriol, from the poison, from all of that yuckiness that holding on to this brings us, you know, it's freeing us. So we're just saying we're free of it. We're leaving that to the Lord. Vengeance is his, and we just trust him with the rest of it. And then that's when we can start to heal. We turn all those blocks, all those layers of unforgiveness, when they get taken off, we can actually receive the healing that we need. So it's it's very powerful. Forgiveness is one of the most powerful things we can do in the spiritual realm. That's what I tell people. Okay, that's great. So this episode is all about forgiveness, and now people have got tools to just get started. Uh, and then yeah, this was great. Good conversation. Good. All right. Well, thanks for joining everyone. We'll see you next time. Goodbye.