INTRODUCTION

Let me first start off by saying that you are an incredible woman.

Not everyone followed the leading of the Holy Spirit and took the intentional steps to download this mini eBook. But you did and personally, I feel that you should be honored for that.

In fact, because you made an intentional move to live your best life through the pathway of forgiveness, I want you to know that you inspire me. And I am deeply humbled to play a part in your internal work to COMPLETE and authentic forgiveness.

As I teach and speak to many women around the world about the subject of forgiveness, I have learned that there are some dangerously prominent untruths that are being taught around the subject.

For instance, one of the biggest myths surrounding is that forgiveness means that you have to reconcile with the offender.

Mythbuster Answer: FALSE!

Not every situation warrants the relationship between you and the offender to be rekindled or brought back together. In fact, having no contact and setting up strong personal borders with the offender is actually the best and safest solution in certain circumstances.

Another myth says, forgiveness let’s people “off the hook” for the wrong that they’ve done.

Mythbuster Answer: FALSE!

Romans 12:19, Hebrews 10:30, and Deuteronomy 32:35 make it very clear that God will settle the score! Our God neither slumbers nor sleeps and has not gone blind to any heart break that you have endured. (Psalm 121:4) He will fight for us and give us beauty for ashes in spite of of our heart breaks (Exodus 14:14, Isaiah 61:3).

HERE’S THE TRUTH:

When you don’t forgive, you are choosing to suffer inwardly, forfeit your abundant life in Christ, and block God’s full operation in your life – all because of someone else’s choices, decisions, and actions.

To be quite honest, unforgiveness, living with a broken heart and having unhealed soul (mind, will, emotion) wounds will almost always:

cause you to lose your joy,
leave you feeling fearful, doubtful, and insecure
keep you hiding instead of shining your Christ given light
hinder your deep and intimate fellowship with Christ
block God’s full operation in your life
thwart the Spirit’s leading to fulfill your unique life’s purpose

How do I know? …Because I struggled for many years of my Christian life with all of the above.

Until I learned HOW TO FORGIVE and how to unbreak my heart.

So that’s why I wrote this book! I wrote this book and packaged the very same process of forgiveness into repeatable steps so that other Christian women would be able to ENJOY JESUS and all the joy that He affords our lives.

Most people know that they SHOULD forgive. However, not everyone knows HOW TO forgive. So prayerfully, that’s what you’ll learn from this short eBook.

HOW I BECAME AN EXPERT ON FORGIVENESS

In 2014, I lost my dearest mom to a difficult and long season with Cancer. One year prior, I also lost both of my dear grandmothers, became a new mom in the midst of a rough patch in my marriage, and worked at a job that was overwhelmingly stressful. This trouble on every side kind of season in my life had me on the verge of a serious nervous and mental breakdown.

It was in the midst of that hammer-after-hammer, domino effect like storm that I was forced to acknowledge the fresh and aged, yet clearly unhealed, scars that I carried – like fatherlessness, betrayal, bullying, and so on. It was almost as if God used that season to allow ALL of the impurities to surface so he could skim them right off the top!

Even though I attended church regularly, was active in ministry as a Bible teacher, and was an enthusiastic praise and worshipper, deep down inside (behind the smile and well wishes that I offered others) I was HEART BROKEN. I was wounded, frustrated, and mad.

…at myself, my family, my friends, and even quietly at God!

But God and His merciful kindness helped me to see the freedom from the inner turmoil that was available to me in His Word. It was God who showed me HOW TO FORGIVE everybody for everything and how to claim all of the joy, peace, and satisfaction in life that the devil tried to steal from me.

And so that’s why I’m here… To share with you some of the processes that I used to FINALLY walk in the FREEDOM, PEACE OF MIND, AUTHENTICALLY JOYFUL AND ABUNDANT LIFE IN CHRIST!

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!

Only courageous women like you, who are DESTINED FOR GREATNESS, will answer the call to excavate their heart space and pluck up the roots of bitterness (Hebrews 12:15) that have been choking their joy and blocking them from reaching their destiny in Christ.

It is women like you who were created by God to change the world through the power of your testimony once you have learned and arrested the process of forgiveness.

So thank you for being willing to do the work IN YOU because

The world needs you to be healed.
The world needs you to be whole.
The world needs you to live vibrantly in your purpose

– and that, my Sister-friend, require that you allow God to remove all the “muck” and residue from your past story, and step BOLDLY into what He has called you to do.

While this journey to freedom in forgiveness is one that requires you to actively engage in the healing process, you are not alone and you don’t have to do it alone! God is right there with you, ready to pour into you all the strength you need to WALK AWAY FROM THE PAIN!

His hand is right there to guide and hold you up as you DECIDE to forgive and let go of all of the hurt, so that you can make room for every BLESSING that God has stored up for you!

I’m a witness to this. The moment that I TRULY forgave every person who has ever hurt, betrayed, or violated me was the moment that I felt a flood of FREEDOM and peace like I’d never felt before. It was as if I had finally taken off a 2-ton backpack that I’d been carrying around for YEARS!

That 2-ton backpack of bitterness, anger, and frustration almost cost me my marriage, friendships, good health and my financial wellbeing! For years, I voluntarily carried all that weight because I was waiting for the people who hurt me to say “I’m Sorry” or at least acknowledge their wrongdoing…

But it never happened and I was left bearing the scars of the wounds AND carrying the weight until it almost destroyed me

However, now that I’m on the other side of the forgiveness coin, I can look back and see all the mistakes that I made and how I punished myself for the crimes of someone else. I can tell you, that once I “laid those burdens down” and refused to pick them up again, things I had been praying for started manifesting, doors opened, finances turned around… Just miracle after miracle occurred.

And it was all because I followed the order to be obedient to the call and lifestyle of forgiveness.

HOW TO FORGIVE THE UNFORGIVABLE

So what do you do with all the hurt and emotional bruising that comes with heart break? Where does it go? Where do you put it?

These steps to forgiveness are worth practicing and have helped HUNDREDS of women who walked through them in my 31 Days to Unbreak Your Heart Series.

Tell the truth. Admit the truth about the offense. Don’t ignore, suppress, stuff down, or disavow the offense or how you feel about it. If it hurts, then talk about it to someone who can guide and hold you accountable to the process of healing your broken heart. (i.e. Christian therapist, Pastor, trusted Christian advisor, etc.)

Determine what decision(s) you’ve made as a result of the offense. Most times it’s not the experience itself that does the most damage to our souls, but what we’ve decided about ourselves, others, life, and God as result of the experience that thwarts our abundant living.

Determine the effects of the decisions you’ve made from the experience. The effects are evident in your life TODAY. For example, how you speak to yourself when you make a mistake or fail at something, how you relate to others, or how you show up in the world (i.e. insecure, defensive, or needing constant approval). Once you recognize the effects that came with the decision you made about the offense, then you can determine if that decision is aligned to God’s best for you (according to the Holy Bible) and if you need to reinforce or dismantle it.

Locate the blessing. What did your heartbreak teach you that have helped you progress in life? How does it make you more qualified to serve others for the glory of God? In what way can you rejoice because you were afflicted? (Psalm 119:71)

Give God the pain of your heartbreak in exchange for His light yoke. (Matthew 11:29) Declare that you are ready and serious to do the work to forgive and move beyond the pain of your past.

BONUS #1 (Love Offering): How to give the pain away.

When I first started on my journey to forgiveness, the Lord gave me a vision of this wooden box (like the one pictured here). He told me to take off ALL of my “heart breaks”, all of the pain, the anger, frustration, and righteous indignation that had rooted itself in me and put them ALL IN THE BOX.

Now that might sound crazy to some, but apart from calling it a vision (or daydream) I don’t how else to articulate it. In any event, I envisioned myself taking all of my hurt and putting it in this box. Then there was a man – a Person in a white robe who was bright (as I could not see his face) who grabbed hold of my hand and guided me away from the box.

I sense that the Person was God and he was showing me how easy it was to DETACH from the heart break and leave it. Now, at the time I didn’t know what the box was for or what it was supposed to do once I filled it up with my stuff. But as time passed and I continued to study and pray on forgiveness, The Lord spoke to my spirit and told me that the wooden box was a BOX OF FORGIVENESS.

It is the place where I could put everything that was hurting and harming me, whether I inherited it, or it was something that I caused for myself. It was the place where God would take it so I didn’t have to carry it.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us

Hebrews 12:1

So GIVE IT AWAY to God. Yes, literally give it to Him. Put it all in His box of forgiveness. Let Him have it. Grab hold of His hand and walk away from it.

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

1 Peter 5:7

Let God do whatever it is that He does with all that hurt. That’s not your concern. Your responsibility is to detach from the heart break and walk in the newness of your life.

…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

2 Corinthians 5:17

The newness of life is who you were before all the hurt and baggage. It’s the part of you that is so magnificently godly that no experience, thought, feeling, failure, accomplishment, etc. even matters.

Exercise 1

What heart ache(s) or pain(s) have you decided to give to God in exchange for His peace, joy, hope, and abundant life? What have you decided to put in God’s box of forgiveness?

What good qualities has your painful experience allowed you to gain? What good and helpful things did your experience teach you? What did you gain from your painful past that you would have never received had you not experienced the heart break?

BONUS #2 (Love Offering): How to detach from your old story

The past is no longer a reality. There is nothing that you can do to change what happened. The past is no longer real. It’s not your now nor does it have to be your future – It’s all “back then” and none of it defines who you are now.

No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it,^*but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,

Philippians 3:13

And you survived all of it! You made it out of the trauma and the fire. However, the hiccup comes when our bodies are no longer in the situation, but our minds constantly rehearse it. Our minds, emotions, knee jerk responses (survival) is what keeps us locked in that place and time, convinced that we are going to be destroyed if we ever have to face that heart break, or something worse, again.

But here’s the truth that you need to agree with:

You’ve outgrown your past
The fire you survived never matched the Love you’ve always had
The power to be free from the pain lies within you
Don’t allow the pain to take up space in your present by reliving it
Don’t ask for it to meet you in your future by fearing it will happen again

You are not your pain

You are not your past

You are not your experiences

You are not your feelings

You are not your thoughts

You are not your broken heart

You are who God says you are. You are who God created you to be before the heart break. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Identify with what God says you are. Not what your old story tells you.

But it all begins with your DECISION about how you will continue to respond to the past? It’s up to you to decide if you will allow the fires you’ve survived to refine you or swallow you whole?

Exercise 2

What would your life be like without the hurt and pain of your past? In other words, if you got rid of the pain associated with the painful event, what would your life be like? How would you What would you do for a living? How would you see yourself, others, God? Where would you go? How would you feel about yourself, others, and God?
Here is mine for example: Without the heart break of being told I was not important, I would feel confident in trying new things. I would speak up about things that mattered most to me without fear of rejection. I would ask for what I want and I would do things that support my dreams and goals.

You have the POWER to detach yourself from the pain and the decisions you make about yourself, others, and life as a result of the heart break.

BONUS #3 (Love Offering): Learning How to give grace and mercy

Grace is getting what you don’t deserve… Mercy is not getting what you deserve

“Some of the load of hurt and frustration that you’ve carried for this long doesn’t even belong to you.”

Many of the fires that we’ve experienced through life are a result of someone else’s “stuff”. And their “stuff” is due to someone else’s “stuff” and so the cycle goes.

However, in order for you to live an abundant life, you must liberally give the twin gifts of grace and mercy without reproach or strings attached.

Now, does grace and mercy mean the same as one not being guilty of a fault or transgression? Absolutely not.

Does the giving of grace and mercy mean that you should reconnect with the person or situation that broke our heart? Not necessarily.

The giving of grace and mercy is simply a production of the freedom and peace you’ll receive once you have decided to detach from the old story and give all of the pain away to God. It’s the supernatural ability to locate someone’s innocence a part from their action.

For example, when I put the hurt and pain of being a fatherless woman in God’s box of forgiveness and realized that my fatherlessness was NOT WHO I AM (detach), I was then able to see pain of my father’s fatherlessness. Through the eyes of grace and mercy, I was able to see the difficulties that he had experienced trying to learn how to be a man without anyone there to show him how to be one – let alone how to be an engaged father.

Grace and mercy brings about compassion. The compassion that I have for my father has replaced the anger, resentment, and unforgiveness. When I made that exchange with God (His peace for my past), my life changed. Doors opened, ideas flowed, joy abounded, and so did my money!

Now, none of that changed the fact that his absence from my life persuaded me to feel and think certain things about myself. However, if it were not for his absence and many other life fires that I’ve survived, I wouldn’t have the rocket fuel I need to walk into my purpose. (Which is teaching you through how to thrive in spite of the pain of your past?)

Decide to feel and think according to God’s Truth

Another key to forgiveness is understanding the difference between:

Your truth Vs. God’s Truth

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.

Isaiah 55:8

This is the crux of forgiveness that is often not discussed. When we set aside our own prejudices (pre-judgements), biases, and finite understandings, only then can we adopt and depend on the sound Truth of God which is solid and unshakeable – regardless of situations.

These are the Biblical truths that Jesus preached which is the perception of God. When we agree with these standards and view life from God’s perspective, it makes it a lot easier to put the shortcomings and failures of people and events in their proper perspective.

For example:

God’s Truth is that everyone sins. (Romans 3:23)

This means that we should never have an expectation for people to get it right all the time. That includes us.

God’s Truth is that all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called to fulfill His purpose (Romans 8:28)

This means that no matter what situations we’ve endured, they all will somehow come together to be beneficial for those of us who love God and desire to do His Will for our lives.

God’s Truth is that we should respond with joy during tribulations

(James 1:2)

This means that our joy should stem from all the advantages that comes out of our difficult seasons in life; That is, greater levels of faith and stamina. – In other words, hard times is where you get to grow and mature

These are just a few examples of the many God’s Truths found in the Bible