Estrangement causes many negative emotions including anger and resentment. You’re understandably hurt. A son or daughter or another loved one has rejected you. Grief, guilt, and shame flood your heart and soon it turns to anger and bitterness.
As a Christian, you know you should forgive but how. I don’t know your story or how the estrangement came about. My kid’s estrangement was due to decisions I made throughout my divorce.
Admittedly, I did not oversee it well. Looking back, I could have done things so much differently. The truth is whether you were the cause or not, all mom’s make mistakes. Did I understand the estrangement? Yes.
Was there hope for reconciliation? Yes.
Forgiveness in Estrangement
One of the things that hurt so much with my estrangement is knowing not only my faults but theirs too. I understood that I had caused pain with decisions I made and that I could have done a better job at navigating the process.
I also knew things they had done. I forgave. Why couldn’t they now forgive me? My focus was in two places.
Guilt and shame for what I had done. Anger and resentment that estrangement lingered for so long without their forgiveness.
That kept me in a dark place.
Heart to Heart with God
Darkness is a place where our enemy, Satan wants us to live. He thrives in that environment. He hurls guilt and shame until our hearts can’t manage anymore. You begin to feel you deserve this miserable life.
If that’s where you are today, there’s one place to go and that’s on your knees before the Lord.
He is light and light dispels darkness. Its time to learn what God says about you and we’ll start with forgiven.
1 John 1:9 says that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Here’s the Steps to Biblical Forgiveness
- Get on your knees and pray to the Lord. Ask Him to show you the unconfessed sin in your life. Confess it to him. Ask for his forgiveness. That’s called repenting. And it means you turn away from that sin.
- Trust His word that when you’ve confessed your sin, He forgives you and restores you.
- He loves you and doesn’t want you to live in darkness. Believe Him.
- Pray for a heart of biblical forgiveness toward your estranged loved one.
What is Biblical Forgiveness
The Bible is full of sinful people. You don’t have to look far to find David who summoned Bathsheba to his palace and engaged in an affair. Then, he called her husband Uriah in so that he slept with her too. And then he sent him back to the war but this time to the front lines. Why? Because he would be killed.
Here is David, whom the Lord says is a man after his own heart who has committed adultery, deceived people and is guilty or murder.
God sends a faithful friend Nathan to confront him, and David realizes his sin before God, repents, accepts the consequences, and is restored. This reads like an adult novel!
A practical application in this passage is to accept responsibility for your own sin. Then, seek forgiveness and lastly accept the consequences that may come as a result.
David sinned before his people and more importantly his God. When confronted, he didn’t deny it. He didn’t attempt to justify it. He admitted it.
Step one to biblical forgiveness is to confess your sin to the Lord. Daily. We all sin every single day. And then trust his word and promise of forgiveness to you.
Forgiving Your Estranged Loved One
God’s word is clear on this. Forgive as you have been forgiven. Matthew 6:15 says “Your heavenly father will forgive you if you forgive those who sin against you; but if you refuse to forgive them, he will not forgive you.”
Let that ruminate around your head and heart for a bit. You want forgiveness as did I. You readily accept God’s forgiveness but then withhold it from those who have hurt you. If that hurts a bit, it should. I struggled with it for years.
A practical application here is to begin to list things for which you’ve been forgiven. You can do it mentally or in a journal. Dig deep and avoid the tendency to recall the “little sins”. None are little to God.
When you’ve done that and thanked God for his forgiveness for all those things, how can you withhold forgiveness to those who have wronged you?
That’s the secret sauce that enabled me to let go and forgive those false accusations, gossip, and painful years with no relationship.
I’ve created a guide to help you with biblical forgiveness. You can download it for free at www.beckykolb.com/guide
Until next time, I pray you’ll get on your knees before the Lord. Confess your sins. Ask his forgiveness and then ask him to help you begin the process of forgiving those who have hurt you.
I promise it will free your heart and bring lasting peace.