"Soon we'll be having a forgiveness workshop," our Bible study leader announced.

"I've already gone through that," I said smugly to the woman next to me. Memories of forgiveness lists I'd dealt with in counseling sessions and one on one times with the Lord came to mind.

Nevertheless, at the workshop, I was shocked by how many people the Lord showed me I needed to forgive. At home I surveyed my list and argued with God. Lord, I don't feel unforgiving toward some of these people. I just feel hurt by them. God revealed that in my life the phrase, "I can't let go of these hurts," was another way to say, "I refuse to forgive."

In the middle of wondering if it was a sin to feel hurt, I looked up "resent," a word mentioned at the workshop. It comes from Old French resentir — re, again, and sentir, to feel. Now the truth hit home. It wasn't wrong to feel hurt. The problem came when I got caught in the trap of "re-feeling." I held on to hurt, nursed it, retold it and replayed hurtful scenarios over and over in my mind. This opened wide the door to being unforgiving. God's desire was for me to turn my hurts over to Him the way Jesus did (1 Peter 2:23) and to choose forgiveness (Luke 23:34).

My prayer partner and I prayed together over my list. I confessed holding on to resentments and named each person — family members, wayward Christians and church leaders — and their offenses against me. I noticed some of the offenses weren't against me primarily but against those I loved, against society or against God. I had held on to bitterness against pornographers, movie makers and authors who produced things that corrupted our society instead of grieving over and praying for them.
Since then I've learned to ask myself questions to guard against hidden instances of being unforgiving and to deal with the attitude promptly when I discover it creeping back into my life.

Who Am I Trying to Change?
"Mom, you're always trying to change me," my daughter had often complained. When reviewing my list, I discovered I resented those who didn't respond to my attempts to change them into more godly people. I'm learning that God sometimes allows me to see flaws in others, not so I can criticize or try to fix them but so I can pray for them. If God instructs me in prayer time to reach out to others with truth, I'm learning not to resent those who don't respond the way I want them to.

I have to admit that deep down I've believed that by being unforgiving I will change people. Bitter, angry wives I know try to succeed with this tactic — withholding love and not forgiving until their man changes. I've been one of those wives; it doesn't work. It makes matters worse (see James 1:20).

My new goal is not about changing people. It's about loving them — even loving myself — the way God loves me. That includes forgiveness. The way a Christian leader put it recently is, "Our job is to love others; God's job is to change them."

What Lies Am I Believing?
Weeks after the forgiveness workshop, I felt led to fast for my extended family.
During the fast, the Lord revealed a lie I had believed — that I'm spiritually responsible for my sister. I had believed that if she made wrong choices, God would punish me. This belief was instilled in childhood when my parents insisted that I, the oldest daughter, was responsible for the behavior of my younger sisters. I had also applied this burden of responsibility to "younger sisters" in the body of Christ and often felt angry and unforgiving when they didn't heed my warnings.

I called my sister and told her what God had revealed and confessed the sin of not forgiving her for wrong choices. She said she understood, because she was battling the same thing with "younger sisters" at work. Believing the truth that I'm not responsible for my sister has freed me to forgive and love her (see John 8:32). We're now closer than we've been in years.

On a regular basis I pray, "Lord, please reveal lies I'm believing that get in the way of forgiving others." He's been faithful to do that.

Where Is My Focus?
Sometimes in prayer, I list other people's faults, insisting God must set these people straight. When it seems God isn't doing a thing, my prayers can have the intensity David's did: "If only you would slay the wicked, O God! ... Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? (Psalm 139:19, 21).
God showed me one day that David changed his focus in this psalm, and I needed to change mine. Too often I focused on the sins of others, which led to resentment. Instead I needed to pray, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).

When I change my focus from the sinful ways of others to my own wicked ways and God's ability to lead me to a better way, I'm less likely to refuse to forgive. I'm too busy marveling over God's mercy in forgiving me. The truth I sometimes want to avoid is that His mercy is blocked from flowing into my life until I forgive others (see Matthew 6:14-15).

When Will I Be Willing to Forgive?
At our Bible study Christmas party, I told a woman I hardly knew about a relative in another state who barely acknowledged my existence.

"Whenever I call and ask if I can come see her when I'm in town, she says she's too busy and hangs up. She's never even met my youngest daughter, who's 14," I complained, "and when I write, to her, she won't respond." I admitted I had stopped writing to her except at Christmastime.

"Elaine, keep writing to her, even if you never hear back," my confidant advised, telling me of a relative who had treated her the same way.

After I got home, I realized my attitude toward this relative was, "I will love and forgive her when she reaches out to me." That woman from the Bible study had passed along wisdom from the Lord: "Love her before — and even if — she never reaches out to you. That is Christ's way" (see Romans 5:8 and Luke 23:34).

I began to write loving letters to this relative once a week, telling about our family and about how much God and I cared about her. No response came from her, but something happened in me. Forgiveness started to flow. She died not long after, and I rejoiced that I had let go of bitterness before she passed away.

This experience taught me that forgiveness is for now and is not based on "if" and "when" the other person does something right.

How Am I Dealing with My Hurt?
Some of my ungodly responses to hurts are judging, criticism, self-pity, gossip, blaming, negativity, prayerlessness, anger, depression and withdrawal. Now when I identify any of these, I try to trace them back to a hurtful incident. Then I renounce the ungodly response. Instead of going to people to retell the hurt, I pour out my heart before God as Psalm 62:8 instructs. When I do, He gives me His perspective on the situation and instructions for a Christlike response to hurt like, "Tell the one who has hurt you how much you love him or her."

Sometimes my anger and unforgiving attitude are against the Lord for not doing things my way — "I resent God for ignoring me" was one item on my list from the workshop. When I bring even this hurt to God, He reassures me He's not ignoring me, but that He'll never give in to my demands. Finally I'm seeing this as a very good thing.
Dealing with hurts God's way, by humbly bringing them to Him and releasing them, opens the door to His grace (see James 4:6). This helps relationships blossom fully — especially my relationship with Him.

Why Do I Want to Hold on to Hurt?
Recently I saw the foolishness of holding on to hurts caused by a family member. I was refusing to forgive her, because she refused to forgive me and others. Even with that knowledge, I still clung to my hurt.

Why? Because being unforgiving was my long-ago adopted means of protecting myself from further hurt. In this situation, the relative had said some mean things to me when I last saw her. Holding on to my unforgiving attitude kept strong the desire to avoid seeing her again anytime soon. I concluded that as long as I didn't see her, I was safe. Wrong! Refusing to forgive was causing anxiety, and I felt alienated from God. Because my husband had been hurt by her also, he supported my attitude, and I supported his. Was this really a safe place to be?

Once I repented of the sins involved in this grand scheme of holding on to hurt to protect myself from further hurt, I felt a deep caring for this relative again, and I saw how much alike we were. My willingness to forgive her encouraged my husband to do the same, and we went to her together to ask forgiveness for our part in the conflict. She didn't own up to her part, but God convinced us that wasn't our concern; forgiving her was. Once I received that truth, I felt overwhelmed with love and empathy for her.
The most important thing I learned from the forgiveness workshop and from what God revealed afterward is that dealing with an unforgiving attitude is an ongoing process. People will continue to hurt me, and I need to be on guard daily and even moment by moment that the tendency to be unforgiving doesn't sneak back into my life through ungodly responses to those hurts. When it does, I can choose in advance to deal with it promptly — God's way.

The prayer of my heart is that I will continue to "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice" and that I'll be "kind and compassionate ... forgiving ... as in Christ God forgave [me]" (Ephesians 4:31-32).