Chapter 4 – When Your Mind Won’t Let It Go
This is the chapter where we discuss replaying things over and over in our heads.
This is also the chapter where I believe many people put down the book and determine they are not ready.
When you go through so much hurt, it is only natural to repeat the trauma moment in your mind. You try to make sense of it and ask yourself a blunder of questions. You want resolution. You want fairness. You want an explanation. And let’s be honest — sometimes you even want revenge.
But the hard truth is that not every situation comes with closure.
Sometimes forgiveness begins when we accept that we may never fully understand what happened — and choose peace anyway. That is so incredibly hard.
Page 4 of my book has a multitude of highlights and turned-down pages, just like the previous chapters. I wish there were enough space for me to share them all with you. One insert that I feel captures the tone of this chapter well is as follows:
“My ability to heal cannot be conditional on the other person receiving adequate consequences…”
The book goes on to tell us that refusing to forgive is refusing the peace of God.
Isn’t that the reason we are on this journey?
We want the peace of God. And the only true way to obtain that peace is through forgiveness.
Chapter 4 is one of the longer chapters in the book, but it pushes us to dive deep within ourselves.
Chapter 5 – The Story Pain Tries to Write
This chapter is one that is very personal to the author.
In this chapter she discusses counseling, diving back into her childhood, how she was raised, and ultimately it tells her story and the system that she felt should be in place around forgiveness.
Because this story is so personal for the author, there wasn’t as much highlighting.
But it did, as a Mom, help me see a few things in a different light when it comes to my kids.
Essentially, what this chapter is telling us is that when someone hurts us, the damage doesn’t always stop with the event itself.
Often the deeper impact comes from the story we start telling ourselves afterward.
Maybe the story sounds like this:
I should have seen it coming.
I must not have been enough.
People can’t be trusted.
Before long, the hurt becomes part of how we see ourselves and the world around us.
This chapter reminds us that while the pain may be real, the conclusions we draw from it are not always true.
Healing requires us to challenge those thoughts and refuse to let pain define who we are.
Chapter 6 – Forgiveness Happens in Layers
“The things marking us from yesterday are still part of the making of us today.”
That one hit me, and it is so true.
I have lived with the hurt. I have sat with the pain. And even though I am sitting on the other side of my forgiveness journey, that marking is still part of me today.
I imagine that most of us were taught that forgiveness is a one-time decision.
You say the words.
You move on.
Problem solved.
But real-life forgiveness rarely works that way.
Sometimes you forgive today… and tomorrow the memory comes back and you have to forgive again. There were days that I forgave over and over and over.
That doesn’t mean you failed.
It simply means healing is still happening.
This is where my forgiveness journal played a huge part in my forgiveness journey. Every time during the day that I began reliving the hurt and the anger, I wrote in my journal.
I wrote who I was forgiving. I wrote the action. I wrote why it hurt me. And I wrote my reason for forgiving.
And slowly — sometimes very slowly — the weight lifts.
Have a wonderful week friends. God Bless you on this journey!
~ Stace
P.S. If you’re looking for the books and tools I’m using, you can find everything under My Resources.
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