Book Review: Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lysa Terkeurst

Can I recommend a beautiful book that I recently finished reading? “Forgiving What You Can’t Forget” by Lysa Terkeurst. I stumbled upon her book while visiting another blog and was immediately intrigued. When I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. I cried my way through page after page. Lysa so beautifully walks the reader through the healing and forgiveness experience as God intended for us. She is so raw, vulnerable, and real in her writings that you immediately connect with her while you “sit at her table.” This book is beautifully written and I wish I could buy it for everyone that I know and love.

“No human gets through life without being deeply, deeply hurt at some point. Grief finds all of us.” (Lysa Terkeurst)

As Christians, we are taught that forgiveness is what we are supposed to do. But as Lysa so gently pointed out, we are never really taught how. Forgiveness is not this magic wand that makes all the emotions go away. The hurt. The pain. The anger. It’s a process and it often times feels overwhelming and defeating and we give up. We carry the unforgiveness with us through life in the form of anger, depression, and even resentment. And all future opportunities or experiences are filtered through that lens. We want to give it to God, but we simply don’t know how. I think sometimes we even get so used to the dull ache of unforgiveness that we forget that it’s there and we think we are okay, but we are missing out on so much joy that God has in store for us.

That is where I gained so much insight and healing from Lysa’s book! Not only did I learn how to begin the healing process from recent pain, but I began to recognize unresolved hurt, resentment, and unforgiveness from my past that I had tucked away deep down in my heart.

Lysa’s willingness to be vulnerable, raw, and open with her readers created an environment “at her table” where grace, love, understanding, and compassion are front and center. If you’re angry, she understands. If you are good one minute and slamming doors the next, she gets it. If you are desperately searching for peace but feel like it’s out of reach, she knows exactly how you feel. If you feel like your life will never be the same, she’s been there. Her table is a beautiful example of God’s love for us. She’s a beautiful example of God’s love for us.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book. I don’t want to give too much away because it’s such a powerful book and should be read chapter by chapter, but I couldn’t help but share some of my favorite moments with God that I experienced through Lysa’s words:

“The sum total of your one incredible life must not be reduced to the limitations of living hurt. The completely delightful, beautiful, fun, and brilliant way God made you must not be tainted by someone who lost their way. The lies they wrongly believed and tried to put on you must not become a burden you carry or script you repeat. You’ve got too much going for you to be stunted by anger, haunted by resentment, or held back by fear. Grow into God’s grace by giving it kindly and accepting it freely.”

“Staying here, blaming them, and forever defining your life by what they did will only increase the pain. Worse, it will keep projecting out onto others. The more our pain consumes us, the more it will control us. And sadly, it’s those who least deserve to be hurt whom our unresolved pain will hurt the most.”

“Forgiveness isn’t an act of my determination. Forgiveness is only made possible by my cooperation. God knew we couldn’t do it on our own.”

“…when I wrongly think forgiveness rises and falls on all my efforts, mustered-up grit, conjured maturity, bossed-around resistance, and gentle feelings that seem real one moment and fake the next, I’ll never be able to authentically give the kind of forgiveness Jesus has given me.”

“Forgiveness is both a decision and a process. You make the decision to forgive the facts of what happened. But then you must also walk through the process of forgiveness for the impact those facts have had on you. Every trauma has an initial effect and a long-term impact.”

“The decision to forgive doesn’t fix all the damaged emotions. It doesn’t automatically remove the anger, frustration, doubt, damaged trust, or fear. To work on those emotions, we must now start the process of forgiving that person for the impact.”

“Acceptance was acknowledging that the permanent ink is now dry on those pages of my story. I cannot change what happened…while I cannot change what happened, I get to choose what I now believe and how what happened changes me for better or worse.”

“That collected proof is not a treasure, nor is it a souvenir proving the hard place you’ve traveled to or your secret weapon of justice. It’s debris. Though you believe that it’s protecting you and making your world better, it’s ugly and sharp. And nothing about it is healing your heart. It’s time to call it what it is…”

“I learned God loves us too much to answer our prayers at any other time than the right time.”

“There are a few times in my life when I’ve seen dramatic moves by God happen quick enough for me to say, “Wow, look what God is doing!” But most of the time it’s thousands of little shifts so slight that the dailiness of His work doesn’t register in real time…I see the makings of a very slow miracle. God was intervening and weaving and working, but my human eyes didn’t detect it.”

“From our vantage point, we can clearly see how what we’re asking from God makes so much sense. In our minds, we see all the good that would surely come from Him doing exactly what we suggest… But what if God sees things we can’t possibly see? What if, from His perspective, what we are asking for is not at all what we’d want if we could see everything from His complete, eternal, perfect vantage point?”

“I want to come to God with my needs, my desires, my desperate longings, and recognize whatever He places before me is His daily bread.”

“God didn’t cause it, but He’s very much aware of it. And he very much sees a bigger picture and has a plan to take all of this and weave it into something that is good.”

“(Bitterness) is like liquid acid seeping into every part of us and corrupting all it touches. It not only reaches unhealed places, but it also eats away at all that is healed and healthy in us. Bitterness leaves nothing unaffected… it will always intensify our reactions, skew our perspective, and take us further and further away from peace.”

“The stain of bitterness doesn’t end at the tips of my fingers… it leaks onto every person I touch.”

“Even the most imperfect, messy forgiveness filled with hesitation and resistance is better than letting bitterness have its way with your heart. The sum total of even the smallest inklings and considerations of forgiveness is always better than one moment of full-on bitterness. You don’t have to cooperate with forgiveness perfectly – just progressively – for it to be good.”

If you are interested in purchasing Lysa’s book, Forgiving What You Can’t Forget, you can find it on Amazon or visit her website by clicking here: www.lysaterkeurst.com.

Have a blessed day, friends!