Forgiving the Unforgivable: The Freedom That Comes With Letting Go

How to Begin the Healing Journey When the Wound Runs Deep and Justice Feels Impossible

Sarah Martinez had not spoken to her father in eight years, a silence that began the day she finally told her family about the abuse she had endured throughout her childhood at his hands while everyone else remained oblivious to the private horror that characterized her early years completely. The revelation shattered her family into factions, where some believed her immediately while others accused her of fabricating stories to gain attention or to excuse her own life struggles that therapy bills and failed relationships seemed to validate as evidence of deeper problems they preferred blaming on her rather than on the man they had loved and respected for decades without suspecting his darker nature. Her father never admitted wrongdoing, never apologized, and never showed any remorse for actions he claimed never happened despite her detailed memories that nightmares kept refreshing regularly. Sarah's therapist kept using the word forgiveness during their sessions, suggesting that releasing her anger toward her father would bring healing that bitterness prevented from occurring naturally. However, every time Sarah heard this advice, rage flooded through her because forgiveness felt like betrayal of the child she had been, like saying what happened was somehow acceptable or excusable when it represented the worst kind of violation that trust makes possible tragically. How could anyone expect her to forgive someone who had stolen her innocence, damaged her ability to form healthy relationships, and who continued denying the reality of wounds he had inflicted deliberately across years of abuse that calculation made even more horrifying than impulsive violence would have been comparatively? Yet the anger she carried felt increasingly like poison that hurt her more than it hurt him, because he lived apparently unburdened by guilt while she remained trapped in past trauma that present moments could not escape fully regardless of how much time passed or how much distance she maintained physically.

This article explores the complex and often misunderstood journey of forgiveness, particularly when the offense seems so severe that forgiveness appears impossible or even inappropriate to pursue seriously. Let me help you grasp what forgiveness actually means beyond common misconceptions that make it seem like condoning evil or releasing people from consequences they deserve facing justly, show you why forgiveness ultimately serves your own healing more than it benefits the person who hurt you, and give you practical steps for beginning this difficult process when everything within you resists the very idea of letting go.

First, Let Me Clear Away the Dangerous Myths About What Forgiveness Really Means

Before I can show you how to forgive what seems unforgivable, I need to dismantle several widespread misconceptions that make forgiveness feel either impossible or offensive to consider seriously when you have been deeply wounded. Think about how confusion regarding forgiveness often causes people to reject the concept entirely rather than to reject merely the distorted version they have been taught incorrectly. The first and perhaps most damaging myth suggests that forgiveness means pretending the offense never happened or minimizing its severity by treating serious wounds as minor misunderstandings that time should heal automatically without requiring justice or accountability from the offender.

Let me be absolutely clear about this truth: genuine forgiveness never requires denying reality or diminishing the true extent of harm that was done to you. When you forgive someone who abused you, you are not saying the abuse was acceptable, understandable, or less serious than it actually was in reality. When you forgive someone who betrayed you deeply, you are not pretending the betrayal did not matter or that trust was never broken fundamentally. Forgiveness begins precisely by acknowledging the full weight of the offense honestly, because you cannot forgive what you have not first named accurately as wrong that caused real damage requiring genuine healing over time. Think of this like a doctor treating a wound, where healing begins not by pretending the injury does not exist but rather by examining it thoroughly to understand its depth and extent before applying appropriate treatment that superficial assessment would miss completely. As one writer at Desiring God explains in discussing forgiveness and bitterness, forgiveness involves acknowledging that the other person has sinned against us and may never be able to make it right, while still choosing to release the debt they owe us.

The second myth claims that forgiveness means reconciliation must happen, where you restore relationship with the person who hurt you as though nothing changed between you fundamentally. However, forgiveness and reconciliation represent two distinct processes that sometimes occur together but that often must remain separate for your safety and wellbeing practically. As theologians at The Gospel Coalition have carefully articulated, forgiveness involves releasing your own anger and desire for revenge so that bitterness does not poison your life progressively, while reconciliation involves rebuilding trust and relationship with the offender, something that requires their repentance, changed behavior, and demonstrated trustworthiness over time before wisdom permits reestablishing closeness that vulnerability would make dangerous currently. You can forgive someone completely while still maintaining healthy boundaries that protect you from further harm, because forgiveness concerns your internal freedom rather than external relationship dynamics that safety might require keeping at distance permanently.

What Forgiveness Does Not Require From You

Let me break down additional misconceptions that often prevent people from even considering forgiveness as viable option when they have been severely wounded:

• Forgiveness does not require you to trust the person again immediately or ever, because trust must be earned through consistent trustworthy behavior over time rather than granted automatically through forgiveness that concerns different dynamics entirely. Forgiveness does not require you to stop feeling hurt or angry about what happened, because emotions take time to heal and will likely resurface periodically even after you have genuinely forgiven someone for offenses that consequences continue producing years later.
• Forgiveness does not require you to remain in dangerous or abusive situations, because protecting yourself from ongoing harm represents wisdom rather than unforgiveness that boundaries express appropriately. As pastor Timothy Keller argued in his book on forgiveness, forgiveness does not mean we cannot pursue legal action when warranted, because often such action is important both for the rehabilitation of the offender and for protecting other potential victims.
• Forgiveness does not require you to excuse or explain away the behavior through understanding the offender's difficult background or circumstances, because explaining why someone hurt you differs completely from excusing that they did so inexcusably. Finally, forgiveness does not require you to immediately feel warm feelings toward the person who wounded you, because forgiveness begins as choice of the will rather than emotion that feelings follow gradually as healing progresses incrementally.

How Bitterness Becomes Prison That Punishes You More Than Your Offender

Now let me help you see why holding onto unforgiveness ultimately damages you more severely than it affects the person who hurt you originally, even though this dynamic seems backwards when justice suggests they should suffer for what they did rather than you suffering for your response to their actions. Think about what happens physically and emotionally when you nurture bitterness over time, where your body remains in state of stress that elevated cortisol creates chronically, where your mind rehearses the offense repeatedly through rumination that prevents peace from developing naturally, and where your relationships suffer because unresolved anger toward one person often spills over into interactions with others who had nothing to do with the original wound but who trigger responses that past trauma sensitized unfortunately.

Let me use a comparison that will help you grasp this spiritual and psychological reality more clearly. Imagine someone gives you a cup filled with poison, intending for you to drink it and suffer accordingly. However, instead of drinking immediately, you carry this cup with you everywhere, holding it constantly, thinking about it obsessively, showing it to others to prove how badly you were wronged, and letting its presence dominate your awareness continuously. The poison never stops being poison simply because you did not drink it immediately, and carrying it around does not hurt the person who gave it to you since they have moved on with their life entirely. Meanwhile, the weight of carrying it exhausts you, the smell of it sickens you, and the constant reminder of its presence prevents you from using both hands freely for other purposes that wellbeing would pursue naturally. Unforgiveness operates similarly, where you carry the offense with you constantly, rehearsing it mentally, feeling its emotional weight, and letting it define your present experience even though the actual event exists only in past that memory keeps refreshing unnecessarily.

The person who wronged you may feel no guilt whatsoever, may have forgotten the incident entirely, or may be living comfortably while you remain tormented by what they did years or decades ago. Your bitterness does not reach across distance to make them suffer proportionally to how you suffer, which means unforgiveness functions primarily as self-punishment that achieves nothing except your own continued pain. This is not to dismiss the legitimacy of your anger or to suggest that what happened to you does not matter significantly. Rather, this reality should motivate you toward forgiveness precisely because you deserve to be free from the prison that bitterness creates internally regardless of whether external justice ever materializes satisfactorily. Research on forgiveness and health documented by the Mayo Clinic demonstrates measurable improvements in mental and physical health when people release chronic resentment, including healthier relationships, improved mental health, less anxiety and stress, fewer symptoms of depression, lower blood pressure, and a stronger immune system.

The Biblical Framework for Forgiving Severe Offenses

We Forgive Because We Have Been Forgiven Infinitely More

Let me walk you through the theological foundation that Jesus established for forgiveness, which does not minimize human offenses but rather places them within larger context of our own need for divine mercy that we have received freely despite deserving judgment ourselves. Think about the parable Jesus told about the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18, where a man owed his master an impossible debt equivalent to millions of dollars in modern currency, a sum he could never repay through any conceivable effort across his entire lifetime. The master graciously forgave this enormous debt completely when the servant begged for mercy, releasing him from obligation that would have otherwise enslaved him and his entire family permanently. However, this forgiven servant immediately found a fellow servant who owed him a trivial amount by comparison, perhaps equivalent to a few hundred dollars, and he refused to show the same mercy he had just received, instead having this man thrown into prison until the small debt could be repaid fully. When the master heard about this, he was furious and reinstated the original debt because the servant had failed to extend the mercy he himself had received so abundantly. Jesus uses this story to illustrate that our offenses against God infinitely outweigh any offenses other humans commit against us, which means receiving God's forgiveness obligates us to extend forgiveness to others regardless of how severely they have wounded us comparatively.

Jesus Demonstrated Forgiveness From the Cross Itself

Now let me show you the ultimate example of forgiving the unforgivable, which Jesus himself provided while experiencing the most unjust suffering imaginable during his crucifixion. He was betrayed by a close friend, abandoned by his disciples, falsely accused by religious leaders, illegally tried, brutally tortured, and executed through one of the most painful methods humans have ever devised, all despite being completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Yet from the cross, while nails held him in agony and he struggled to breathe, Jesus prayed as recorded in Luke 23:34: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." This was not a casual statement spoken from comfort but rather a costly act of will performed while suffering intensely at the hands of those for whom he was asking forgiveness. Jesus did not wait until his murderers apologized, did not require them to understand what they had done, and did not make his forgiveness conditional on their repentance before extending mercy that they neither requested nor deserved remotely. This example establishes that Christian forgiveness involves extending mercy even to those who actively harm us, who show no remorse, and who might well hurt us again given opportunity.

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it dramatically alters the future by releasing you from the prison of perpetual victimhood where the person who hurt you continues controlling your emotional life years after the actual offense ended. Freedom comes not from them changing, but from you choosing to let go of the right to endless rehearsal of their wrongs against you.

The Gradual Journey From Rage Through Grief Toward Release

Let me help you see that forgiveness rarely happens instantaneously but rather unfolds through stages that healing requires traversing honestly without rushing through difficult emotions that processing takes time to resolve thoroughly. The first stage involves fully acknowledging the offense and your legitimate anger about what happened, because you cannot forgive what you have not first allowed yourself to feel angry about appropriately. Many Christians struggle here because they have been taught incorrectly that anger itself is sinful, leading them to suppress or deny their rage rather than bringing it to God honestly the way David did in numerous Psalms where he expressed furious anger about injustice while still maintaining relationship with God throughout the emotional turmoil.

Think about how Psalm 109 contains some of the most vengeful language in all of scripture, where David asks God to punish his enemies severely through curses that modern readers find shocking when encountered within sacred text. However, God included these prayers in scripture precisely because they model how to handle rage appropriately by bringing it to God rather than either acting on it destructively or pretending it does not exist dishonestly. When you feel murderous anger toward someone who harmed you, you are experiencing normal human emotion that trauma produces naturally. The question is not whether you feel this anger but rather what you do with it, whether you nurse it into bitterness through constant rehearsal or whether you bring it to God and allow him to gradually transform it through his healing work that time facilitates progressively. The imprecatory psalms teach us that justice and vengeance belong to the Lord, as Romans 12:19 declares: "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."

The second stage involves grief, where you mourn what was lost or damaged through the offense that consequences cannot fully reverse even with healing. When someone betrays you deeply, you lose not just the relationship as it was but also the innocence or trust that made such relationships feel safe previously. When someone abuses you, you lose years of peace and security that childhood should have provided naturally. This grief is legitimate and must be honored rather than rushed through prematurely, because unprocessed grief often masquerades as ongoing anger that actually represents sadness you have not permitted yourself to feel fully yet. Giving yourself permission to grieve, perhaps with a counselor or trusted friend who can hold space for your pain, allows you to move through this necessary stage toward eventual acceptance that reality involves wounds that cannot be undone but that can be integrated into your story without defining your entire identity permanently.

Six Practical Steps for Beginning the Forgiveness Process

Let me give you concrete actions you can take to begin moving toward forgiveness even when emotions resist and when the very idea feels impossible or inappropriate currently. First, write out everything you feel about the offense and the person who hurt you, holding nothing back in this private document that no one else needs to see. Include all your rage, your pain, your sense of injustice, and your fantasies of revenge if such thoughts occur naturally. This exercise externalizes what you are carrying internally and often reveals patterns in your thinking that awareness makes possible to address subsequently. Some people find it helpful to write this as a letter to the offender that they never intend to send, allowing completely honest expression without concern for how the other person would receive such communication.

Second, pray specifically for the ability to forgive rather than trying to manufacture forgiveness through willpower alone, because genuine forgiveness ultimately represents gift that God gives through his Spirit working in you over time rather than achievement you accomplish through sufficient effort independently. This prayer might sound like "God, I do not want to forgive this person, and I cannot do so in my own strength. Please change my heart and help me to let go of this bitterness that is poisoning my life." Such honest prayer acknowledges both your current state and your dependence on divine help for transformation that natural capacity cannot produce on its own. Third, practice seeing the person who hurt you as a broken human being rather than as a monster, recognizing that hurt people hurt people and that their woundedness does not excuse their behavior but does provide context that makes forgiveness more conceivable when you recognize their humanity despite their actions.

Fourth, make a specific choice to forgive even before your emotions fully align with this decision, because forgiveness begins as an act of will that feelings follow eventually rather than waiting for feelings to change before choosing forgiveness. You might say aloud or write "I choose to forgive (name) for (specific offense), and I release them from the debt they owe me for this harm." This statement does not mean you suddenly feel fine about what happened, but rather that you are making a conscious decision to begin the process of letting go rather than continuing to nurture the grievance indefinitely. Fifth, whenever you notice yourself rehearsing the offense mentally or fantasizing about revenge, deliberately redirect your thoughts toward something else, perhaps by praying for the person who hurt you or by focusing on gratitude for something good in your life currently. This practice, repeated many times, gradually retrains your thought patterns away from obsessive focus on past harm. Research documented by Psychology Today on the science of forgiveness confirms that forgiveness therapy has been linked to greater feelings of happiness, hopefulness, and optimism while protecting against serious conditions such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sixth, consider whether any form of restorative justice might be possible that would address the harm done while still pursuing forgiveness internally. This might involve reporting crimes to authorities, confronting the person about their behavior in safe contexts, or seeking restitution for damages when appropriate. Forgiveness does not preclude justice but rather changes your motivation from revenge that seeks harm to accountability that seeks truth and protection of others from similar harm in the future.

Forgiving Those Who Never Acknowledge They Did Anything Wrong

Let me address one of the most difficult aspects of forgiveness, which involves extending mercy to people who never apologize, who never acknowledge that they hurt you, or who actively deny that anything wrong occurred despite your clear memories of harm they inflicted deliberately. This situation feels particularly unjust because it seems to reward their dishonesty with your forgiveness, as though you are letting them off the hook while they refuse to even admit there is a hook from which they need releasing. However, remember that forgiveness primarily benefits you by releasing the poison of bitterness from your own heart rather than by providing comfort to the offender who may care nothing about your forgiveness anyway. As John Piper has discussed in addressing this challenging scenario, when dealing with someone who does not recognize any wrong that has been done, we must practice what he calls "enemy love" and "forbearance," treating the other person better than they deserve even when full reconciliation remains impossible.

Think about how Jesus forgave his crucifiers before any of them asked for forgiveness or acknowledged wrongdoing, demonstrating that genuine forgiveness operates independently of the offender's response or even their awareness of needing forgiveness at all. When you forgive someone who never apologizes, you are making a unilateral decision about your own heart rather than entering into mutual agreement about past events. This unilateral forgiveness does not require them to accept it, appreciate it, or even know about it, because its primary purpose involves your freedom rather than their comfort or restoration. You can forgive completely while still acknowledging that reconciliation remains impossible without their repentance, which means you maintain healthy distance while refusing to let their ongoing denial of reality continue poisoning your emotional and spiritual life indefinitely.

Some people find it helpful to perform a symbolic act of forgiveness such as burning the letter they wrote detailing all their grievances, releasing balloons with written offenses attached, or participating in a guided forgiveness meditation with a counselor. These acts do not have magical power but can serve as markers in your journey, representing your choice to release bitterness even when the person who caused it remains unchanged and perhaps always will. The freedom you experience through forgiveness exists independently of whether they ever acknowledge what they did, apologize sincerely, or change their behavior subsequently, because your internal liberation does not depend on their external response to your internal work.

How Forgiveness Coexists With Desire for Justice

Let me help you see how forgiveness and justice represent compatible rather than contradictory goals, where you can forgive someone personally while still believing they should face legal or social consequences for their actions that harm caused to you or to others who need protection currently. Think about how a parent might forgive a child who stole from them while still implementing consequences that teach responsibility and prevent future theft. The forgiveness releases the parent from ongoing bitterness, while the consequences serve educational and protective purposes that love requires maintaining appropriately. As The Gospel Coalition explains regarding this dynamic, forgiveness is different from reconciliation, and even when God forgives our sins, he does not promise to remove all consequences created by our actions.

Similarly, you can forgive someone who abused you while still reporting them to authorities so they cannot harm others, can forgive someone who defrauded you while still pursuing legal restitution for damages they caused, or can forgive someone who slandered you while still setting the record straight publicly about false accusations they spread maliciously. The difference between pursuing justice from a heart of forgiveness versus from a heart of revenge lies in your internal motivation and emotional state. When you pursue justice from forgiveness, you do so without the consuming rage that revenge fuels, without the obsessive focus that bitterness produces, and without the vindictive pleasure that another's suffering brings when unforgiveness dominates your response. Instead, you calmly seek appropriate accountability that protects others and upholds truth while maintaining your own internal freedom from the prison of ongoing resentment.

Romans 12 addresses this dynamic by instructing believers not to take revenge but rather to leave room for God's wrath, trusting that divine justice will ultimately prevail even when human justice fails or proves inadequate temporarily. This passage does not prohibit pursuing legal justice through appropriate channels but rather forbids vigilante vengeance driven by personal hatred. You can work toward justice in this world while simultaneously trusting that God will ultimately right all wrongs, including those that earthly courts never address or that statutes of limitations place beyond legal reach frustratingly. This perspective allows you to forgive personally while still advocating for systemic changes, supporting other victims, or participating in legal processes that accountability requires pursuing diligently.

What Freedom Actually Looks Like After You Have Forgiven

Let me describe what you can expect to experience as forgiveness takes root in your heart over time, because the results of forgiveness often surprise people who expected immediate dramatic transformation but who instead discover gradual healing that unfolds through subtle changes accumulated across months or years. First, you will notice that thinking about the person or the offense no longer produces the same visceral emotional reaction that once dominated your response automatically. The memory remains, but it loses its power to instantly transport you back into the emotional intensity of the original trauma that unprocessed pain kept refreshing constantly. According to research highlighted by Psychology Today on the mental health benefits of forgiveness, participants who engaged in forgiveness exercises reported reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression, along with improved sleep and lower stress levels.

Think about how physical wounds heal, where initially any touch causes excruciating pain, but gradually the area becomes less sensitive until eventually you can touch the scar without discomfort even though visible evidence of the injury remains permanently. Similarly, forgiveness does not erase the memory of what happened or remove all emotional response, but it does reduce the emotional charge that memory carries, allowing you to acknowledge the past without being controlled by it presently. You may find yourself able to discuss what happened without the rage or tears that once made such conversations impossible, or you may discover that entire days pass without thinking about the offense at all when it once consumed your attention obsessively.

Second, you will likely experience greater emotional capacity for joy, love, and connection with others because the energy that bitterness consumed becomes available for positive engagement when resentment no longer drains your resources constantly. Many people describe feeling lighter after forgiving, as though a heavy burden they carried for years has finally been set down permanently. Third, you may find that the person who hurt you shrinks in your mind from the monster proportions they occupied when unforgiveness magnified them into the central figure of your life story. They become simply a flawed human being who hurt you badly, no longer worthy of the extensive mental real estate they once occupied when rehearsing their offenses became your primary internal activity.

From Trapped by Bitterness to Freed Through Forgiveness

Sarah Martinez from our opening story spent three years in therapy working through the trauma of her childhood abuse and the additional wounds caused by family members who did not believe her when she finally disclosed what had happened privately. Her journey toward forgiveness did not follow a straight line but rather involved periods of progress followed by setbacks when triggers brought all the rage flooding back as intensely as ever temporarily. She initially resisted her therapist's suggestions about forgiveness because they felt like betrayal of her younger self who deserved to have someone remain angry on her behalf perpetually.

The breakthrough came when Sarah finally understood that forgiveness served her own healing rather than her father's comfort, and that holding onto bitterness was not loyalty to her childhood self but rather continued victimization that extended his power over her life indefinitely. She wrote a lengthy letter to her father detailing everything she remembered and everything his abuse had cost her across the decades since, a letter she never intended to send but that the writing process itself served therapeutically by externalizing what she had carried internally for too long. After writing this letter, Sarah performed a small private ceremony where she burned it while praying specifically that God would free her from the bitterness that was poisoning her life more effectively than her father's abuse had damaged her originally.

Forgiveness did not happen instantaneously for Sarah but rather unfolded gradually over the following two years as she practiced redirecting her thoughts whenever she found herself rehearsing her grievances mentally, as she chose to pray for her father's salvation despite feeling no warm emotions toward him whatsoever, and as she worked with her therapist to process the grief of what healthy childhood should have been but never was in reality. She never reconciled with her father, maintaining boundaries that safety required preserving permanently given his continued denial of wrongdoing. However, she found that thinking about him no longer produced the visceral rage that once dominated her response automatically, and that entire weeks would pass without her thinking about the abuse at all when it once occupied her mental space constantly.

Most significantly, Sarah discovered that forgiveness freed her to build healthy relationships with others without the walls that bitterness had constructed around her heart defensively. She married someone she could trust because she had learned to distinguish between reasonable caution based on someone's actual behavior versus blanket distrust that past trauma projected onto innocent people unfairly. She found that joy came more easily, that her faith deepened because she no longer held God responsible for not protecting her as a child, and that she could help other abuse survivors by modeling that healing was possible even when justice remained elusive and when offenders never apologized or changed. The little girl who had been so brutally betrayed by someone who should have protected her finally found freedom not through her father changing but through her own choice to stop letting his actions decades ago continue defining her present reality unnecessarily. Forgiveness had accomplished what years of rage never could, releasing her from the prison where her abuser no longer held the keys that bitterness had provided him unwittingly.