Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

by Lysa TerKeurst

Publisher:

Thomas Nelson

, 2020

Overview

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

You deserve to stop suffering because of what other people have done to you.

Have you ever felt stuck in a cycle of unresolved pain, playing offenses over and over in your mind? You know you can’t go on like this, but you don’t know what to do next. Lysa TerKeurst has wrestled through this journey. But in surprising ways, she’s discovered how to let go of bound-up resentment and overcome the resistance to forgiving people who aren’t willing to make things right.

With deep empathy, therapeutic insight, and rich Bible teaching coming out of more than 1,000 hours of theological study, Lysa will help you:

• Learn how to move on when the other person refuses to change and never says they’re sorry.
• Walk through a step-by-step process to free yourself from the hurt of your past and feel less offended today.
• Discover what the Bible really says about forgiveness and the peace that comes from living it out right now.
• Identify what’s stealing trust and vulnerability from your relationships so you can believe there is still good ahead.
• Disempower the triggers hijacking your emotions by embracing the two necessary parts of forgiveness.

 

Look for additional biblically based resources and devotionals from Lysa:

• I Want to Trust You, but I Don’t
• Good Boundaries and Goodbyes
• It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way
• Uninvited
• You’re Going to Make It
• Embraced
• Seeing Beautiful Again

Read more

What You'll Read

TerKeurst opens her powerful book Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again by asking readers to consider people's "marked moments in time" when something changed everything—a divorce, a friend's abandonment, a violation—and how that event led to intense grief and pain.

She knows—TerKeurst experienced deep hurt after discovering her husband's affair. Yet she was able to push back the pain and forgive, and after more than 1,000 hours of theological research on the topic, she shares her experience, insight, and encouragement with readers.

TerKeurst takes them by the hand and guides them toward understanding why staying in that dark place of unforgiveness—blaming the offender and forever allowing the incident to define their life—will only increase the pain.

Readers will explore:

• The legitimate feelings feeding the resistance to forgiveness that hold many people back
• How pain eventually projects out to others and consumes the one hurt
• Why chaos will result if healing isn't worked out
• What happens when people remain stuck in their hurt
• How unforgiveness can mark and control people
• The importance of boundaries
• How forgiveness is God's beautiful, divine mercy for human hearts prone to turn hurt into hate.
• And more

Ultimately, readers will explore why the goal with forgiveness is progress—not perfection—and that it is possible to let deep pain drive new healing habits and perspectives. According to TerKeurst, forgiving is not always about doing something for a human relationship "but rather obedience to what God has instructed us to do."

Table of Contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: I Still Cry over What Happened
  • Chapter 1: Forgiveness, the Double-Edged Word
  • Chapter 2: Welcome to the Table
  • Chapter 3: Is This Even Survivable?
    
  • Chapter 4: How Is Forgiveness Even Possible When I Feel Like This?
  • Chapter 5: Collecting the Dots
  • Chapter 6: Connecting the Dots
  • Chapter 7: Correcting the Dots
  • Chapter 8: Unchangeable Feels Unforgivable
  • Chapter 9: Boundaries That Help Us Stop Dancing with Dysfunction
  • Chapter 10: Because They Thought God Would Save Them
  • Chapter 11: Forgiving God
  • Chapter 12: The Part That Loss Plays
  • Chapter 13: Bitterness Is a Bad Deal That Makes Big Promises
  • Chapter 14: Living the Practice of Forgiveness Every Day
• The Beauty of Forgiving
• A Journey through What the Bible Actually Says about Forgiveness
• Lysa’s Most Asked Questions on Forgiveness
• Getting the Help You Need
• Some Important Notes to Consider on Abuse
• Acknowledgments
• Notes about the Author

What You'll Learn

In Lysa TerKeurst's Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again, readers will not only learn about the author's journey toward forgiveness but also:

• How to move on when the offender refuses to change and never says they're sorry
• A step-by-step process to become free of past hurt to feel less offended today
• What the Bible says about forgiveness and the peace that follows for those who live it out
• The truth of what steals trust and vulnerability from relationships to help readers see and believe good still exists
• What the two necessary parts of forgiveness are and how to use them to disempower triggers hijacking their emotions
• And more

Plus, readers will learn about the beauty of forgiveness—how it's a mark of the character of Christ in the believer—what the Bible says about forgiveness, and where people experiencing abuse can find help.

Product Details

• Title : Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again
• Author: TerKeurst, Lysa
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Publication Date: 2020
• ISBN: 9780718039882

About Lysa TerKeurst

Lysa TerKeurst is president and chief visionary officer of Proverbs 31 Ministries and the author of more than twenty-five books, including It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way and the #1 New York Times bestsellers Forgiving What You Can’t Forget and Uninvited. She writes from her family’s farm table and lives in North Carolina.