Forgiveness | Debbie Barr

Forgive him?

You've got to be kidding me. I can't even look at him, let alone forgive him. After what they did?

No way. That was unforgivable. I'll never forgive them for that. You can still forgive them because the purpose is to set yourself free. The toxic effects that we harbor when we don't forgive of resentment and bitterness and unforgiveness.

God wants us to forgive because He wants us to have that inner freedom that we get when we do forgive. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" . Today it's one of the hardest things to do and our guest says it's the key to living in freedom. If you're struggling with the idea of forgiving someone or multiple people, don't miss the conversation straight ahead. Author and speaker Debbie Barr will join us today. Debbie has written some great resources including one with Dr. Chapman and I don't think there's any more important topic or one that hits all of us on some level like the one that we're talking about today. If you go to buildingrelationships.us, you'll see that featured resource, forgiveness, the choice that sets you free.

You can find out more again, buildingrelationships.us. Gary, I don't think I've ever asked you this question, was there ever anyone you found it hard to forgive? You know, Chris, to be honest, I can't remember that I ever had a struggle forgiving someone. No, I have had to forgive a few people along the way because none of us are perfect and I've had to be forgiven. Maybe that's why, at least in my memory, I find it rather easy to forgive people because I've been forgiven.

When you've been forgiven by God for all of your failures, we do have outside help as Christians in having the attitude of Christ and being willing to forgive others. But this is an important topic that a lot of people struggle with and I'm glad we're going to talk about it today. Me too, and I'm glad we got Debbie Barr back with us. Deborah is an author, speaker, health educator. Her special interests are in worksite health promotion, Alzheimer's disease, living a healthy lifestyle, and Christian growth. She's written Grace for the Unexpected Journey, Strength for the Cancer Journey. She co-authored the book with Dr. Chapman, Keeping Love Alive as Memories Fade. And our featured resource today is that book, Forgiveness. It's a mini book, actually. Forgiveness, the choice that sets you free.

Find out more at buildingrelationships.us. Well, Debbie, welcome back to Building Relationships. Thank you so much. It's really good to be back. You're not afraid to tackle some really difficult issues. Why did you want to deal with the issue of forgiveness?

What motivated you? Well, you know, Chris actually touched on that. I wanted to focus on forgiveness because it is an important issue for all believers. You know, we're grateful to be forgiven people, but sometimes we really struggle to be forgiving people. You know, to forgive others as we have been forgiven by God, as you mentioned. And so forgiveness is an issue that concerns every Christian.

So I feel it's a topic worth, you know, a deeper look than we often give it. Well, I think you are right, for sure. Talk about those voices we heard at the beginning of the program where they said, I can't forgive. What they did is unforgivable.

A lot of people are there, aren't they? Yeah, definitely. And honestly, I would guess that everyone listening to this conversation has struggled or will struggle at some point in their life to forgive someone. Because, you know, we live in a fallen world and it's almost impossible to get through life without having somebody do something or say something that truly offends us or deeply hurts us.

And sometimes that happens deliberately. And when we're deliberately insulted or betrayed or violated, it can be very difficult to forgive. So that's why I think it's good to take a deeper dive into the topic of forgiveness. Yeah, I can empathize with people who have that feeling of, I can't ever forgive. It's just they hurt me too deeply.

You know, so I think those feelings are rather natural for some people. And that's why I agree with you. We need to dig more deeply into the whole concept of forgiveness. So let's get a working definition of forgiveness. What isn't forgiveness and what is forgiveness? Oh, this is such an important question because so many people are confused about what forgiveness is and what it isn't. And that confusion is what often gets in the way of actually forgiving somebody. So it's important to understand what forgiveness doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that what was done to you is okay. It doesn't mean that the person is not accountable for what they did. And it doesn't mean that your pain doesn't matter or you should just, you know, quote, unquote, just get over it. When we understand, you know, what it isn't, we can better appreciate what it is and what it is.

And Dr. Chapman, I've heard you say this as well. What it is, is the decision to no longer hold somebody's offense against them. You know, it's the choice to cancel the debt.

It feels like they owe you. And this mirrors, you know, what God did for us. And there was a debt that separated us from God that we couldn't pay and that debt was canceled by what Jesus did on the cross.

So when a Christ follower forgives another Christ follower or, you know, a non-Christ follower even, they mirror what Jesus did for them. So, and I think that's an important distinction that forgiveness is not that you have a certain feeling. It's a choice, a conscious choice to live the penalty. And obviously, we can't control our feelings.

You know, our emotions just come. We don't ask for them. But we do control our choices that we make. Now, you write that the choice to forgive is not about or for the person who hurts you. Forgiveness is not for them. Forgiveness is for you.

What do you mean by that? Well, this is where the title of the book actually comes from. You know, forgiveness, the choice that sets you free. There are actually two kinds of forgiveness. One kind does involve a conversation with the person who hurt us.

But the other kind takes place entirely in the mind and the heart of the offended person. It's one-sided forgiveness. It doesn't involve the person who caused the hurt. This is called unilateral forgiveness.

And that was a new term for me that I discovered while I was writing this book. Unilateral forgiveness requires nothing from the person who caused the offense. And so it doesn't matter if that other person has asked for your forgiveness or not. And it doesn't matter if they have no remorse for what they did.

It doesn't matter if they're not speaking to you. It doesn't even matter if that person has died. You can still forgive them because the purpose of unilateral forgiveness is to set yourself free.

It's for us. It's for our peace of mind and our heart, happiness, for our spiritual and emotional freedom, the toxic effects that we harbor sometimes when we don't forgive of resentment and bitterness and unforgiveness. And so God wants us to forgive because he wants us to have that inner freedom that we get when we do forgive.

Yeah. I think it's important that we make the distinction between those two kinds of forgiveness. Because many times people are thinking, well, I can't forgive because the other person hasn't apologized. You know, they haven't acknowledged that they did me wrong. And so I can't forgive them. I sometimes use the word release them to God, you know, as opposed to using the word forgiveness.

But I think it's the same concept that we can release. You can say, God, you know how hurt I am. You know what I'm feeling. But I don't want to hold this anger and hurt and all inside. I want to release them to you.

Put them in your hands. God's a loving God and a just God. So I think recognizing that difference is going to be important for us as we continue our discussion today. Now, you use the word jettison when talking about forgiveness. What does that mean?

That's not a word we hear very often. But what it means, I think, sheds some light on what forgiveness means. Jettison means to discard or get rid of something. You know, in centuries past, when ships on the ocean encountered like a life-threatening storm at sea, what the crew did was they jettisoned the cargo.

They threw the heavy cargo into the ocean to give those on board a better chance of surviving a violent storm. So forgiving is a decision to jettison the heavy emotional cargo of resentment and bitterness from your life, instead of continuing to live under the burden, you know, of that weight. Debbie, there's a spiritual component to forgiveness. It's really at the heart of Christianity, as you mentioned earlier. But sometimes people who have been forgiven have a hard time forgiving others.

Why is that? Talk about that a moment. Yeah, you have touched on something real important there. Forgiveness researchers point to two components or two aspects of forgiveness. They say there's the decisional forgiveness and then there's emotional forgiveness. So for Christ followers, the decision to forgive is often pretty quick and easy because we know God wants us to do that.

But it can take a while for our emotions to catch up because every time we think of the offense, we feel that hurt all over again. So it's the emotional pain that causes us sometimes to really struggle for a while before we do forgive. There's a great quote from Lewis Smeeds about the timing of forgiveness. And I really I like this quote.

It's in the book. He said, there are instant forgivers, I suppose, but not many. We should not count on the power to forgive bad hurts very quickly.

God takes his time with a lot of things. Why should we not take ours with a hard miracle like forgiving? And I like that quote because there's a lot of grace in those words. You know, God knows our hurts and he's well aware that it can be very hard to forgive. So there's a lot more to forgiveness than sometimes we realize. You know, the decision to do it is one thing. The realization that God wants us to do it is, you know, that goes without saying. But the struggle is the emotional component.

And sometimes it takes a while. Now closely associated with that is this idea that you've heard and I've heard, where people say that forgiveness is forgive and forget. But this remembering is tied into these emotions. What do you think of that statement, first of all, and how does it fit in? Oh, forgive and forget.

Wouldn't it be nice? But it's a myth. And the reason it's a myth is because human beings don't have the ability to simply decide we will no longer remember something.

You know, God can do that, but we can't do that. In fact, it's the opposite. We are biologically wired to remember anything that's emotionally painful. In fact, the more emotion an experience generates, the more likely it is that we will remember it. And the biological reason for that is there is a pair of brain structures called the amygdala. We've got one amygdala on each side of our head. And when you have a painful emotional experience, it's the job of the amygdala to tag the memory in such a way that you actually remember it better than other experiences.

And so this is a God-given survival thing. Preserving strong, painful memories actually helps keep us safe. Like, for example, the reason you don't put your hand on the hot stove the second time is because you remember what happened the first time.

And the painful memories are all tagged like that to help keep us safe. And that's the reason it's a mistake to wait for your emotions to give you the green light to forgive. You know, memories might get dim over time, but it's not likely that you're ever going to completely forget a really painful wrong that was done to you. So you may never get to the point where emotionally you feel like forgiving.

And it comes back to your point, Gary, that you made. Ultimately, forgiveness is a decision of the will and not the emotions. Yeah. And so forgive and forget. I like the forgive part, but not the forget part.

Yeah. I've sometimes said to people that when you make the choice to forgive, and then the memory comes back, and often the emotions, as you said, the emotions come back, or maybe the emotions haven't even left, the emotions have hurt and so forth. But to say to God, you know, Lord, you know what I'm remembering today, and you know what I'm feeling again today, but I thank you that I chose to forgive that, and now help me to do something worthwhile today.

And we don't allow the emotions and the memories to control our behavior. Now, you note that experts who study this whole concept report a connection between empathy and forgiveness. First of all, talk about what is empathy, and what is the connection between empathy and forgiveness?

Wow. I would have to look up in a dictionary what the definition of empathy is, but I guess I would try to describe it as a feeling of compassion and understanding for what that person is going through. And the connection that I've made and others have made with forgiveness is what is that person going through in their own personal life that might have caused them to say that hurtful thing or to do that hurtful thing? You know, are they going through a divorce? Have they just lost their job? Does their child have cancer? You know, have they just buried a loved one? You know, when there's a yes answer there, it can help us have empathy for that person, and that does make it a little easier to forgive.

Well, I think that makes a whole lot of sense, you know, when we try to see the world from the other person's eyes. Do you have a personal story about empathy that you could share with us? I do.

Actually, I have several, but I'll just pick one. For many years, I used the same stable, very reliable CPA to prepare my taxes. So every year, when the taxes were ready, I would get a phone call asking me, come on in and sign the forms so she could submit them. So one year, I realized it was getting really close to the filing deadline and I had not gotten that call.

So I emailed, I left a voicemail, I didn't get any response. So finally, I thought, well, I guess I have to go in there. So I drove to the office and the assistant was there. I was happy she was there because I thought if the office is empty, I don't know what I'm going to do. But she was there and I asked her if my taxes were ready and she said they were not. So I asked when she thought they would be ready and she said she didn't know. And so my next question is, what's going on? She explained that my taxes would not be done by the deadline because her boss had gone on vacation.

What? She took a vacation during tax season and she left my taxes undone on her desk. You know, I had known this woman for a long time and this was completely out of character for her.

So my taxes were late and I had to pay a penalty and I was not happy with my CPA. But months later, I ran into the woman's husband and in that conversation, he shared with me that his wife had dementia. And I immediately realized that that odd behavior during tax season was the disease starting to take hold of her. This filled me with empathy and the resentment that I had harbored toward her for inconveniencing me. It just kind of melted into forgiveness. So empathy, in my experience, makes forgiveness so much easier. Chris, that ring a bell with you?

Anything? It does. Well, I had the same thing happen with a tax thing. It's amazing that you'd say this because the CPA had put a payment through that actually didn't go through. But we didn't see that for a couple of months. And then came, I mean, two or three years of getting these notices. You didn't do this then.

And I thought we had covered it over. It was like all this stress and strain. And then I found out the same kind of thing, that there was a medical issue that was going on with why she hadn't seen this. And it was like, you know what, just like you said, if I can understand why this happens and I don't jump to, oh, you know, you don't like me anymore and you're incompetent or this, that or the other thing. It's like, no, she made a mistake.

It was not, in one sense, it was her fault, but it wasn't her fault either. And have I ever done something like that? Absolutely.

I do it every day. So when you can wrap your mind around that or Debbie, I think what you're saying is believe the best about that other person rather than jumping to the powerful negative that you have. And it will be easier to not let it go because you didn't let it go.

You still had to incur the penalty, but to understand it and to then make that choice. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And your point is really good to think the best because sometimes you don't find out the backstory. You don't know the backstory. You don't know what they're going through.

And it just so happened that you and I both found out what that was. But many times you don't know. Well, some offenses are easier to forgive than others, obviously. You identified one type of offense that is especially hard to deal with.

What is that offense? Well, this is just my opinion, but I think the most difficult forgiveness challenges we face are offenses that are done to us anonymously. And anonymous offenses just seem to be a part of modern life more so than in generations past.

Things like hit and run damage to your car while it's in a parking garage or Amazon packages delivered to your front porch, and then they're stolen by anonymous porch pirates or identity theft that leaves you stuck with bills for things you never bought or sends your tax refund to somebody other than you. And the worst of the worst would be like a drive-by shooting where this unscrupulous person remains completely, frustratingly anonymous. And I can say from personal experience that when there's no one to even hold accountable, there's also this sense of outrage that the person got away with it just because they can't be identified. That's a heavier forgiveness challenge than when you might be able to sit down with someone and talk about it, but you can't do that in these cases. You say that that situation gives the opportunity to pray a special kind of prayer.

Tell us about that. Yeah, when the offending person is anonymous, when the offense was anonymous, here's how I think about it. Even though the identity of this person is unknown to you, you're thinking about them. You know, in the providence of God, they're on your mind, so this is an opportunity to use your secret weapon, which is prayer, to impact the life of this person because God has a plan for their life too. He knows who they are, where they are, what compelled them to do what they did, and when you bring that person to God in prayer, you release both into the situation and into that person's life the supernatural power of God. And in so doing, you fulfill the biblical mandate that's in Luke 6 that tells us, pray for those who mistreat you. And so something wrong that was done to you, something bad, has now set in motion something good.

And when you see anonymous offenses in this light, it also helps you feel more like a victor than a victim. So you're not praying, God, you know who they are, and get them and get them now. Personally, that's not my prayer. What would the more proper prayer be? I think it would be, God, you know who they are, you know why they did what they did, I pray that your Spirit would begin to work in their circumstances, in their conscience, to move them in the direction toward you where they need to go, something to that effect. And I once prayed that, and something that was stolen from me actually was brought back anonymously.

I still don't know who took it, or what the circumstances were for them that they brought it back, but it was left near my mail slot when I lived in an apartment, so God hears. Yeah, yeah, apparently God touched their hearts, yeah. You're listening to the podcast Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. He's the author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Go to fivelovelanguages.com and you can find more ways to strengthen your relationships. You can also see today's resource, Debbie Barr's book, Forgiveness, The Choice That Sets You Free.

Just go to fivelovelanguages.com. Debbie, did you learn anything while researching forgiveness that really surprised you? Yeah, I actually learned several things that surprised me, but one of the biggest ones was what we've already mentioned, that there are two kinds of forgiveness. I think in my mind there was only one thing to do, and it had to result in reconciliation of a relationship. I didn't know anything about unilateral forgiveness, you know, the one-sided forgiveness. There's not that conversation. God is pleased simply because it draws us closer to Him and prepares us maybe to have that conversation with the other person.

Yeah, you know, I think many people have struggled with this because they don't make the distinction between these two kinds, you know. And they hear the pastor say, you've got to forgive everybody. And sometimes my question is, does God forgive everybody?

And the answer is no. God forgives those who repent, you know, who confess that they sinned. And that restores or starts a relationship with God when that happens. But I think your discovery of this concept of two kinds of forgiveness, one which doesn't involve reconciliation and it doesn't involve repentance, but it's a releasing that person to God and letting God take care of that. And you're not carrying all the resentment and hurt and all that inside with you forever. Let me ask you this personally, did what you learned change the way you deal with forgiveness personally?

Yeah, you know, it really did. It elevated the importance I now place on forgiveness, you know, realizing that God never wants me to allow bitterness or resentment to fester in my heart, you know, because He loves me and He wants me to have that peace of mind. And it also prompted me to look back over my life and forgive things that happened in my childhood that I had just kind of stuffed away and tried to ignore. So it was really in some ways life changing for me to write this book. And forgiveness is now on the front burner for me and I want to practice it as a way of life.

Yeah. You know, we discussed this somewhat earlier, but I'd like your comments on it. How do we respond to the idea that true forgiveness must always result in restoration of a broken relationship, which we've just mentioned, but how do you respond to that?

How would you respond to that? Well, my concept of forgiveness before I wrote this book was that forgiveness should always result in restoring a relationship. And of course, that's the ideal.

You know, that would be the best case scenario. But what I now caution people about is that it's not always possible and it's not always safe to just jump right back into a relationship that has been in some way physically abusive, emotionally abusive or involved addiction or some other very serious problem. It's always right to forgive that person who has harmed you. And it's never the wrong thing to do to practice that one-sided forgiveness. But it's not always wise to immediately open your life back up to that person. You know, bottom line, I guess you could say, forgiveness is not glue. You know, it does not always automatically glue relationships back together. At least not in some cases without, you know, maybe some kind of professional help and support. That's the world we live in and the practical aspects of this topic, I think.

Yeah. Debbie, how would you answer this question if a person says, how do I know if I have a forgiveness problem in my life? I mean, is there a test we can take? Are there symptoms of unforgiveness? What do you see in that?

Well, I don't know of a test, but I think symptoms might be revealed in how a person would answer a few questions for themselves. Like, am I so wrapped up in the wrong that was done to me that I can't enjoy the present? Is my anger and bitterness spilling over into my other relationships? Am I losing sleep over what was said or done to me? You know, and I guess the most important question would be, am I willing to ask God to help me go against my natural instinct to pay back insult for insult and evil for evil?

And I would say to that person, if you're willing to take that step of obedience, I believe God will bless your efforts to forgive. Yeah. I'm guessing that some of our listeners can identify with those symptoms you gave.

Is it keeping me from enjoying the present? Because I've seen people who just, they're living miserably. You know, they're not enjoying life because of what happened to them. Or it may cause them, as you said, to respond negatively to other relationships and losing sleep at night about it. Yeah.

I would think those are pretty common symptoms. Doesn't that go back to, Debbie, to what you said at the beginning and the subtitle of the book? This is freedom that you give to yourself, that if you are so wrapped up in this and it won't leave you, that there are steps that you can take to choose to walk in freedom rather than be shackled. Yes, I'd say exactly.

Yes, exactly right. And the whole thing you brought in of coming to God with this and asking God to help you do what doesn't come natural, you know, the natural man, I deserve to be upset. I deserve to have this resentment toward them.

I reserve, you know, to want to see them suffer, you know, but asking God to help us to be able to release them to Him in that sense, forgiving them, knowing that they're not going to have a relationship with God if they don't repent, you know, and God forgives them, but making that choice to put them in God's hands rather than being the judge and the jury and the one that's going to make them suffer. Romans 12 says, God said, that's my job. Don't you do that. It's my job.

Wow. Okay, I've had another question for you, Debbie, and that is, I hear this an awful lot. I just can't forgive myself. I can't forgive myself.

And I have some opinions on that. But when you hear that phrase, forgive myself, what sparks in your heart? You know, as I was writing this book, I became aware of some things that I needed to forgive myself for.

And I have a section in the book that talks about that. I don't specifically have a lot of advice about that, except to just get quiet, get alone with God, pour out your heart, and have empathy for yourself. You know, what was the circumstance when that happened? How old were you in my situation, being a very young child or a teenager had something to do with what kind of toolkit did I have at that point in my life? What was I really capable of? Why did I fail?

It's not always as dire as I think we're hard on ourselves. So I'd say empathy, confession, you know, treat it just like you're forgiving anybody else, but you have inside information about the empathy part. How would you do that, Chris? Forgive yourself. Well, the way I frame it is, if God has forgiven me, if he says, this is what he says, you know, Jesus paid it all. He took my penalty for all the sins that I've committed. If that really is true, then forgiving myself is believing that what he said is true is true. Because I often think of God as looking over the portals of heaven, arms crossed, shaking his head.

Oh, you know, you're such a loser, you know, you can't do anything. And it's like, no, God doesn't look at me that way. When I'm in Christ, when I have the forgiveness on me, then I can look at myself that way as well.

Not to let everything slide, you know, I'm good. But for those things that wrap me up, then I keep coming back to me about the mistakes that I've made. I can say, you know what, I want to believe what God says about me rather than what I feel about myself right now.

What do you say about that, Gary? Yeah, it makes sense to me. I think, you know, if a holy God can forgive us, then we can forgive ourselves. That doesn't mean that we won't have thoughts of regret, okay?

Yeah, that we wish we hadn't done that. But we can't undo the past, you know, but we can forgive the past. Debbie, in the book, you mentioned the idea of heroic forgiveness. What makes one act of forgiveness more heroic than another?

Well, that's my term, so I don't know how much credibility there is. To me, heroic forgiveness is when someone chooses to forgive a wrong that has taken something precious from them that they can never get back. To me, it's heroic because it's the ultimate expression of forgiveness as an act of the will because you're probably enduring heartbreaking emotions. And I have a story in the book that talks about, you know, an example of that, a couple of examples actually in the book. One of them is about the story of a woman named Marcy. Her mother was murdered in her own home by someone she was renting a room to, and it was a really brutal, horrific murder. And it brought to an abrupt end one of Marcy's closest and dearest relationships, which of course was her mom. And so every time she thought about what her mom had endured, what an awesome and sweet and kind person her mother was, she was just frozen in unforgiveness and thoughts of revenge for years. And after a long time of agonizing in prayer, she was finally able to separate her emotional devastation from the need, you know, God's desire for her to forgive.

And so she laid it down. She laid down her resentment and her anger, and she made a choice to do what I'm calling heroic forgiveness. And what she told me was, when I did that, I had a burden lifted off me because I felt this is what God wanted me to do. So forgiveness is sometimes really, really hard, but it's still something God wants us to do. Yeah. Rather than carrying all that burden on our hearts and all that anger inside of us, yeah, turn it over to God.

Wow. You believe that one of God's rules for his children is to always forgive. This is not an optional choice.

Why do you say that? Well, I say that because in Matthew chapter 18, Jesus uses this story to teach his followers about forgiveness, and he ends the story by telling them, you must forgive your brother or sister with all your heart, or my Heavenly Father will not forgive you. So he was not talking about our eternal salvation, you know, he was not talking about that because that's something that can never be taken from us. His point was that God is always willing to forgive us, but only if we forgive others. It's about lordship, it's about, are you willing to do this hard thing that I'm asking you to do, because God cares about unity among believers, and he cares about the emotional climate in our hearts, you know, like we've talked about already. So, you know, some people can do that very quickly.

And Dr. Chapman, I heard you say that you're one of them, which is awesome. Other people like Marcy are so devastated by an offense, you know, that for a while, and for her, it was a long while, that emotional pain kept her from forgiving. But however long it takes us to forgive, what's clear from the story that Jesus told is that at some point, each of us is able to choose to forgive, and that God does require us to do it. And, you know, it's good to keep in mind, why is that? It's because he wants us to have that inner peace and freedom from the toxic effects of unforgiveness. And, you know, once again, that's where the title of the book comes from. It is the choice that sets you free.

Absolutely. We've been talking the whole time about our forgiving other people. But what if I'm the person who has hurt someone?

And that would be all of us at some juncture or another. I've hurt the other person. I've sinned against them, or I've hurt them in some way that may not be a moral thing, but I've hurt them deeply. And I need forgiveness of that relationship. What do I need to be keeping in mind about how to deal with my own failures?

Such a good question. We live in a fallen world, and just as, you know, it's hard to go through life without someone hurting us, we hurt other people even when we don't mean to. When you're the one that needs to be forgiven, I can tell you from personal experience, it's humbling and maybe a bit intimidating to ask for forgiveness, but it's always the right thing to do. Again, Jesus affirmed this in the Bible in Matthew chapter 5. He tells us, and I'll just read the quote, To say that another way, if we know that we've hurt or offended another believer, God really doesn't even want our gifts until we've asked that person to forgive us and made an effort to reconcile with them.

Our unity with other people is so important to God. So when we're in the wrong, you know, it pleases God when we reach out in humility and ask for forgiveness. You know, right along with that, the thing to remember that is comforting, I think, is that sometimes people arrive at forgiveness slowly. If you ask for forgiveness, but that person isn't ready to forgive you, it doesn't mean they won't change their mind at some point, especially if you're praying for that to happen.

I'm thinking about Paul's words in Romans, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. So when you ask someone forgiveness, and they don't want to forgive you, you have done what you can to restore the unity and you can feel good about that, regardless of the outcome. Debbie, earlier you mentioned childhood hurts that you needed to work through, and my guess is there probably were some people who are no longer living that you had to forgive. Can you just say a word about that for our listeners?

Yeah, you're exactly right. Several people from my childhood years are no longer alive. And so when these hurts came to mind, this book had a way of making me kind of make sure that I had all my bases covered and going back through my life. There were several things that happened when I was really young, adults, including teachers at school.

None of these people are still living. And so keeping with the whole idea of that type of forgiveness that's just within your own heart and mind, it didn't really matter that they were no longer living. It was what I was harboring and the hurt I was nursing every time I thought about it that needed to be dealt with before the Lord. And so I did that and those things are in his hands now, they're over, and I don't have to experience any more pain because of those things being forgiven now and long gone. So we don't force the person to forgive us or preach them a sermon. The Bible says you're supposed to forgive. I can hear a husband saying that to a wife. I can hear that too.

It's not good. Well, Debbie, thanks for being with us today. You and I have a long relationship having written books together on other topics. But this book that you've written, I think is going to help a lot of people with this whole issue of forgiveness because there's so much misunderstanding about this in our world today, especially among Christians. So thanks for taking time to write the book and thanks for being with us today. Oh, Gary, my pleasure.

Thank you for allowing me to be with you and Chris today. My guess is that this program is that you write in the heart at some point, somewhere, and if Debbie is right, there is real freedom here for you. Her mini book is titled Forgiveness, The Choice That Sets You Free. You can find it at buildingrelationships.us. Again, go to buildingrelationships.us. And next week, help for wives who want sexual intimacy more than their husbands. Don't miss the conversation in one week. Our thanks to our team behind the scenes, Steve Wick and Janice Backing. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.