The Five Steps of Forgiveness

In every life there is someone who needs forgiven. There is a father or mother who made mistakes in raising us. There is a teacher who was harsh or uncaring. There is a friend who misused our friendship. There is a boss or co-worker who tried our patience and won. There is a spouse or loved one who damaged us under the guise of love. There is a child who took everything we taught them, then went off and damaged themselves and others in ways we could never have seen. And there is our own worst judgment turned on ourselves. In every life there is someone to forgive.

If you are someone who needs to find a way to forgive, here are the best steps I’ve found (and no, it’s not simply, “I forgive you” and the matter is settled. That only works for children who are two) in order to do that.

The first step to forgiveness is to ask God to help you to be willing to forgive. Forgiving someone because everyone else says you should or because you know it’s the right thing to do will leave you feeling empty and angry if you try to force yourself to do so. Therefore, you must first ask God for the willingness to forgive. The best way to do this is to say, “God, please soften the hard places in my heart toward _________ so that I can be willing to forgive him/her.” Now, this is not a one-time and it’s done thing. It may take a few days of saying this repeatedly or it may take a few months if the trauma has been damaging enough or if it was long-lasting. But that is the first step—to be willing.

The second step for some may actually be the first step. They may already be willing to forgive the person, but just not know how. In this step the person trying to forgive simply says, “Lord, help me to forgive ___________ for any and all wrongs they have done to me.” Again, this step may take some time. I have found that if you will say this every time your thoughts go to that person, sooner or later, your heart will begin to feel forgiveness.

Now many people stop there, and then wonder why later on the forgiven person and the circumstance surrounding that person doesn’t go away. You think, “I’ve forgiven them, so why don’t I feel better about it? Why is that still bothering me?” It’s still bothering you because you haven’t completed the forgiveness process.

Sure, you’ve forgiven them, but what I’ve learned is that often there were two people in the situation and you haven’t forgiven the other person—you. I had a roommate in college who was like a sister to me for about 18-months. We were all-but inseparable. Then she found a boyfriend and suddenly the friendship that I had invested a lot of time and emotion into changed in a way I wasn’t ready for. I was angry and hurt and afraid and lonely. She tried, but our friendship didn’t survive.

I knew I had to find a way to forgive her, and eventually I did. But I still felt horrible about the way things had ended. Even after I re-established contact with her and got our friendship to a place where we both knew we were no longer angry and hurt, I still didn’t feel right about the whole thing. Then, one day I heard someone say that you need to say, “I forgive myself for ever thinking I ever did anything wrong.” I forgive myself… That was the part I had been missing. I had forgiven her, but I had never forgiven myself for the large part I had played in the whole mess.

So, I started, “I forgive myself for ever thinking I did anything wrong with ______.” You did what you knew how to do at the time, and as Maya Angelou says, “You did what you knew how to do at the time, and when you knew better, you did better.” Slowly over time, my guilt about the situation started to dissipate until now I can look back on that experience and be grateful for the good times we had instead of focusing on all the junk at the end.

A few years later I ran up against another life lesson about forgiveness. This time it was with a co-worker who on the outside seemed “lovey-dovey” but who was actually cunning, manipulative, and destructive. Unfortunately because of my position, I was in close contact with this person almost every day. I did my best to remember that she was hurting and that the stuff she did really didn’t have to do with me, and generally just tried to stay above the fray. After a year she left the job, and I was elated because I felt I had “passed that test” without getting un-Christian about the things she had done to me.

Over the next several years, I went through the other steps—forgiving her, forgiving myself. However, I still didn’t feel totally whole about the situation. Then one day I was thinking about it, and I thought, “You know, I’ve never prayed to be at peace with what happened.” Immediately I started praying, “Lord, please help me to be at peace with this situation and with _______.” Eventually I did feel peace.

Shortly thereafter the Lord placed a book in my hands that illuminated the final step of forgiveness. I had forgiven her, I had forgiven myself, I was at peace with the situation… But God doesn’t require that we simply “tolerate” people—He says that we should LOVE them. Boy, now that was a hard concept with this person. He wanted me to love her? Odious, would be the word that comes to mind as God and I had that conversation. Nonetheless, I knew He was right.

It was then that I applied the final step. I prayed, “Lord, please help me to love __________.” The first few times I just about choked on the words, but the more I said them, the more the feelings of hurt in my heart changed. Slowly something else began to take over. Then I began to really feel love toward this person and to pray for her in a way that I hadn’t before. However, I still wondered if it was real or if it was just the act of my imagination that wanted so much to please God that I wanted it to be real.

Well, as always happens when you ask God a question, He sends an answer. My husband came home one evening, and he had been out on a job replacing some doors. This person came out and started screaming at him about if the old keys would still fit and how were they going to lock the building that night and how the neighborhood thieves would probably make away with anything of value if they didn’t get it locked up properly. In short my husband was taken aback and shocked at this exchange. By the time he got home, he was just plain mad. However, until that point he hadn’t told me who it actually was.

Then he said, “When she left, she said, ‘Tell Staci and the kids I said hello.’” Until she said that, he hadn’t even realized who it was. As soon as he said that, I knew, and my suspicions were immediately confirmed when he told me who it was. The strange thing was—in my heart the moment he said her name, there was nothing other than peace. Even as he continued to rant and rave about all the stuff she had said, there was nothing but peace. Finally I said, “You know, it would sure be horrible to have to live life like that. Think about how many people want nothing to do with her and who are excited when she leaves the room. I feel sorry for her. She really needs a lot of prayer.”

It wasn’t an act. It was honestly how I felt. And that, I think, is real forgiveness. And that, I guarantee you, is the power of the five steps.

Be willing to forgive

Forgive the other person.

Forgive yourself.

Ask for peace.

Ask for love.

It will set you free in ways that you cannot even begin to fathom.