Hello my darling, today we are talking about forgiveness. Whew. I know. Its like my last post about Self-Care during your healing journey was really preparing you for this big one! So many people struggle with HOW to forgive someone who never apologised. And so many of us have not and will not hear those three words ‘I AM SORRY’ from the perpetrators of what we went through.  

*A gentle note before we begin: this post talks about being hurt by people who never took responsibility, including parents and family. Please be gentle with yourself as you read, you can close the tab at any point and come back another day. If you need support, my resources page is here for you.

I’m gonna start this off by saying that as the person who survived, you do NOT owe anyone anything! You don’t deserve to feel like anything that happened was your fault because it wasn’t. And finally, you don’t deserve to carry any shame about what was done to you. So many of us have been wronged in different ways – people might have lied to you, betrayed your trust, cheated on you, lied on you, stolen from you, hurt you physically, verbally, emotionally or spiritually and left you to deal with the broken pieces. First of all, I am so SORRY for what they did. If you have never heard it before I’m saying it to you right now; I’m sorry for what they did to you, you did not deserve it and it’s not your shame to carry. 

If you are reading this and struggling with where to start – I created a free guide with some simple practical steps to help you Start your healing journey below and join our free healing community:

You guys know my story by now, unfortunately it involves abuse in my childhood from a family member and also sexual assualt as a teen (still a child) from a stranger.  

I blocked out these memories in my mind for a long time, not deliberately but probably more as a survival mechanism, and it took years and years and many therapists for me to reach 2024 ‘my healing year’ where I finally met a therapist who helped me to uncover it all (Shout out Ms G, God bless you). The first time I heard the word forgiveness come up was when I disclosed to a family member in Zambia who said ‘we don’t really talk about these things, we should just forgive and focus on the future’ – imagine their horror now! Lol, I mean it’s probably what fuelled me to share my story with the entire world online. But I also didn’t realise just how much it was affecting me to carry so many things that caused me shame and made me feel guilty, because I believed for so long that it was MY fault and that I deserved the abuse in one way or another. But no, no, no, abuse is NEVER the victims fault. I really need you to hear me when I say that it was NOT your fault. You deserved protection and innocence and it should have never happened to you. 

So lets talk forgiveness. What is it and why does it matter?

What Forgiveness Actually Is And What it isn’t.

Forgiveness is the deliberate release of your resentment and your claim to repayment from someone who has hurt you. It does not require an apology, reconciliation, or forgetting, and it happens entirely within you.

I was so confused about forgiveness for several reasons, but one was that I had never actually sat down to understand for myself what forgiveness actually means, it made it difficult for me to even consider how to forgive someone who never apologized. The second time I heard about forgiveness is when I shared my story to my church family for the first time. I was shocked that I could be in tears and literally broken down and someone could have the audacity to come over and tell me to ‘forgive them’. How are you gonna give ME more stuff to do after I have done ALL of this processing and grieving to even get here? I truly did not have the capacity to do anything else except ignore that remark and that individual, and quite frankly I’m so glad I did. 

As a Christian believer it can become very tricky to talk about the church and it’s responsibility to survivors of abuse.  Forgiveness got handed to us as a tidy little eraser which we can use say to erase everything the person did. It seems many times that there is no accountability, no consequences, no acknowledgement that it was wrong. Just onus on the survivor to ‘move on’ because ‘it’s in the past and we shouldn’t be bitter about it’. But this is so dangerous and extremely deflating for the person who was hurt, it leaves you carrying the original wound and then tops it up with the shame of not being spiritual enough to get over it fast enough. The offender walks away lighter but the survivor is now carrying two heavy loads instead of one.

And I want to be careful here, because this is where real harm happens. When a church puts all its weight on the survivor forgiving quickly, and none of its weight on protecting the vulnerable – people get hurt twice. Every time we don’t talk about it, we miss a chance to stop it happening to someone else. So first, lets be clear about what forgiveness is according to the dictionary:

• Merriam-Webster defines forgive as ceasing to feel resentment toward someone who has wronged you. But it doesn’t stop there, it lists two more senses that most of us skip: giving up your resentment of what was done and granting someone relief from a payment they owe.
• Cambridge puts it more plainly: To decide not to be angry with someone, and not to punish them. Note the word decide. Not feel. Decide
• Collins and the older English dictionaries group it with a family of words that tells you everything: Pardon, mercy, absolution, remission. Remission. Amnesty. Condonation.
• Psychologists – from the Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley describe forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to release your feelings of resentment or revenge toward someone who has harmed you, whether or not they actually deserve it.

They’re equally clear on what it isn’t: forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting, it doesn’t mean condoning or excusing what happened, and it doesn’t oblige you to reconcile with the person who hurt you or let them off the hook legally. Every definition in every dictionary describes forgiveness as something that happens in you. It’s your resentment you’re releasing. Your claim to repayment you’re giving up. Your decision, made in your own heart, without anyone else’s permission.

I love words and the history of words, so I looked up the etymology of the word ‘Forgive’ which comes from Middle English foryeven, and before that Old English forgiefan. It meant to give, grant, allow, to remit a debt, to pardon an offence and also, simply, to give up. It’s a compound: the prefix for- meaning “completely,” plus giefan, “to give,” so literally: To give it away completely.

And that’s forgiveness summarised right. Not that they get let off scott-free, but that you decide to put down the power to punish them, because carrying it was costing you more than using it ever would. It’s saying ‘You HURT me, but I don’t want to HURT you back, even though its what you deserve, I release my desire to hurt you back.’ And honestly, it’s still its really hard. So please take your time with this, and don’t let anyone ever rush you or guilt pressure you into making a decision that you are not ready for.

Forgiveness is NOT: 

• Saying what happened was okay. It wasn’t. 

• Pretending it didn’t happen. It did. 

• Erasing accountability. They are still responsible for what they did. 

• Giving up your right to justice, safety, or truth. 

• Reconciliation. You can forgive someone you never speak to again. 

• Trust. Forgiveness is free; trust is earned. 

• A feeling you wait around for. It’s a decision you make, sometimes daily 

Forgiveness IS: 

• Releasing your grip on a debt you were never going to be paid anyway. 

• Choosing not to let what they did keep costing you. 

• Handing the weight to God instead of carrying it in your chest. 

• Something you do for you privately, quietly, on your own timeline. 

As a Christian, a huge part of my faith centres around forgiveness – I will write a blog post specifically on this another time. But even in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:23-35), the King cancels what’s owed, he doesn’t pretend the debt never existed, and he doesn’t tell the servant he owed nothing- the sum is named, the wrong is real, and then it is released.

There are recorded benefits of forgiving those who hurt us. One large longitudinal study of women found that those with the highest levels of forgiveness had notably higher positive affect and social connection afterwards, and fewer depressive symptoms, than those with the lowest. And another study on Everett Worthington’s forgiveness research found that ‘sustained resentment and rumination are linked with raised cortisol, higher blood pressure, weakened immune function and greater cardiovascular reactivity’ basically the same patterns we see in chronic stress.

For me, I struggled with getting angry at my relative abuser for a long time because I struggled to see myself as valuable enough to get angry over. I had to learn how to love myself, how to see myself as precious and loved and valuable and important. Then I could start seeing how wrong he was. Then I could get angry and so it was important for me to reach that stage. But when I learnt that part of healing also means releasing that person from holding a part of my mind and heart, I was ready to let them go and to focus on me.

I wanted to do it for ME. You have stolen enough for me and you will NOT steal my joy too!!! You can’t take anything more from me, I am giving my heart the space and peace it deserves by removing the power from you.  Forgiveness and protection are not opposites. You can forgive someone and never be alone with them again. You can forgive someone and still report it. You can forgive someone and still want them held accountable because accountability isn’t revenge, it’s how we keep the next person safe. Anyone who tells you otherwise is asking you to pay for their comfort.

So forgiveness is truly. and fully for you. If you are struggling, please don’t feel any shame. Take your time and try some of the steps that helped me below: 

How To Forgive Someone Who Never Apologised: Steps To Take

1. Tell God the truth (the ugly version). Not the tidy prayer. The real one. The angry one, with the shaking in it. Ask Him why. Say the thing you’re scared to say out loud. He can handle it, and He specialises in the brokenhearted in a way no book, no pastor, no friend, and no journal ever will. Let Him in. 
2. Stop waiting for the apology. This is the hardest one. Some people will never say sorry because they can’t see it, or won’t, or are gone. Waiting keeps you tethered to them. Releasing the debt isn’t saying it wasn’t owed. It’s saying: I’m not going to spend the rest of my life at this window. 
3. Give it a name. Write down exactly what happened and exactly what it cost you. Not to relive it to stop it living rent-free and unexamined. You cannot put down something you’ve never let yourself fully hold. 
4. Redirect the energy. All that fire you’ve spent on them? Turn it around. Into your rest, your body, your gifts, your people, the things you’ve been putting off. This is the part people miss: forgiveness isn’t just letting go, it’s reclaiming. What are you going to fill that room with now it’s empty? 
5. Keep your boundaries. Forgiving does not mean granting access. You are allowed to forgive from a distance. You are allowed to never explain your decision to anyone. 
6. Expect to do it more than once. Forgiveness isn’t a one-time ceremony. Some mornings you’ll wake up and have to choose it again. That isn’t failure that’s the work. 
7. Do it on your timeline, or not yet at all. If you’re not there, you’re not there. Nobody gets to rush you. Not a pastor, not a family member, not a blog post. Not even this one. 

If you’re not ready, you’re not behind

And finally here’s what I want to leave you with my darling reader, there is a world full of joy, and peace and freedom waiting for you on the other side of healing. It might feel like you have a huge and impossible task before you, but WITH God, all things are possible. I have learnt and seen that our Creator has good plans for us, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope and that your joy may be full and your life may be abundant. So whatever you went through in your past, does not have to define your future, and you don’t have to walk the path of healing alone. Join my healing community below and get my free PDF with practical steps to take to Start your healing journey today. Lets continue this walk to freedom together:

Love, Light and Healing,

MC x