I made a new friend named Pastor Mark Sowersby. Mark recently spoke at a work event where he told us about his brutal childhood of abuse. Mark has written about his life in his book titled, Forgiving the Nightmare and he is beginning have more speaking opportunities to share his story about how he was able to forgive his step-father.
Mark and I have connected several times discussing forgiveness and out of those conversations I came up with a few steps that might help people on their journey of forgiveness. These steps are not intended to make it sound simple or easy. If you read Mark’s story, you’ll come away from it wondering how Mark could have ever offered forgiveness.
STEPS TO FORGIVENESS
Not everyone will walk these exact steps, some may skip steps and other steps may have to be experienced multiple times.
Revelation– The discovery of what forgiveness is, to forgive someone who has wronged you.
Rejection- The common human response is to reject the idea of forgiveness because the hurt and pain was so substantial and because the offender does not deserve to be forgiven.
Time- The concept of forgiving an offender will often take time, occasionally a lifetime.
Wonder- A person has had enough time pass and has seen or heard that other people have forgiven some great offense in their life. They begin to understand that forgiveness might offer them some freedom from their past hurts, and they begin to wonder if someday they too could possibly forgive.
Wrestle- Again they reject the idea of forgiveness because the hurts and pains were so substantial, but now they wrestle with the idea because maybe after dealing with the pain for so long, maybe forgiveness will finally be the thing they have actually been looking for all along to set them free.
Acceptance- They accept the idea that offering forgiveness will eventually offer them more freedom, and yet, it may still take more time before they can finally offer that forgiveness. They may have to figure out how to offer forgiveness, they may have to walk these steps of forgiveness multiple times.
Offer- They willingly and honestly offer forgiveness and they receive the freedom that comes from letting go and forgiving. This too may still take multiple steps and multiple attempts depending on the levels of hurt and pain.
It offers the most healing if it can be said directly to the offender in a one-to-one conversation. But forgiveness can still be offered in writing or even after an offender has passed. It is ultimately an experience of the heart.
Forgiving someone does NOT mean:
You forget what they have done
You pretend it never happened
You allow them full access back into your life
You don’t hold them responsible for their actions; financially, legally, or emotionally
Forgiveness is not a gift to the offender; it is ultimately a gift to yourself.
Forgiveness is not setting the offender free; it is letting yourself out of the
prison of memories.
Forgiveness is not ignoring or diminishing what the offender did; it is allowing
the pain and hurt to finally stop hurting you.
