I was sitting in my office, staring at my screen, trying to find the right words. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what I needed to say, it was that I didn’t quite know how to say it. How do you say “thank you, but no thank you” to something big? Something good. Something that, by most standards, you’re supposed to say yes to.

This opportunity had the potential to take my life in a completely different direction. It was meaningful. It was significant. It was, in many ways, exactly the kind of thing people work toward. Because of that, I carried it with me throughout the week, turning it over in my mind. Not because I didn’t know my answer, but because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful. I didn’t want to close a door that others had so thoughtfully opened for me.

But the more I sat with it, the clearer it became that this opportunity, while perhaps lucrative and even admirable on the surface, would have pulled me away from what I do best. It would have shifted my days toward things that don’t come naturally to me.  It would pull me away from the parts of my life that bring me the most fulfillment, encouraging others, being present with the people I work alongside, and having the time and emotional margin for my family. At this stage of my life, those things are not small. 

I think sometimes we forget that not every opportunity is meant for us. We tend to measure opportunities by how impressive they look or how much potential they hold, rather than by whether they actually align with who we are. But the truth is, we are all uniquely designed with different gifts, different strengths, and different ways of contributing. And just because something is good doesn’t mean it is right for you.

When my kids were young, they loved to play sports. I showed up, I cheered, I supported them in every way I could. But I would have never wanted to be the coach. Not even for a moment. There are parents who are incredibly gifted in that role, who love it, who thrive in it, who are energized by it. I admire that so much. But it was never something I was meant to step into, and I never felt the need to force myself into that space just because it was available.

In Bible, Paul the Apostle talks about how each of us has been given different gifts and that we are meant to use them accordingly. That truth stayed with me this week. Because somewhere along the way, especially in our culture, we started to believe we should be capable of doing everything well. We should be constantly striving to be better, faster, more accomplished, more everything. 

One of the gifts of getting older is the ability to let go of the pressure to be everything, and instead start embracing the things I'm actually good at. To find a sense of peace in leaning into my strengths and releasing the constant need to chase after areas that were never mine to chase. Not having someone else’s gifting is not a failure. It’s part of our design, part of how God uniquely created us.

So I rehearsed the words in my head more times than I’d like to admit. I thought about how to express gratitude without leaving the door open. I thought about how to be honest without sounding dismissive. And when the moment finally came, I simply chose to be truthful. I expressed how much I appreciated the opportunity, how honored I was to be considered, and then I said the hardest thing for me to say: this doesn’t work for me.

Not because it wasn’t good. But because it wasn’t right.

When I said it, I felt something I didn’t fully expect. I felt peace. The kind of peace that doesn’t come from pleasing everyone else, but from being aligned with what you know is right for you. And for me, in this season of life, that mattered more than saying yes to something that was never meant to be mine.

Not Every Opportunity Is a Calling

It’s easy to forget that the kingdom of God doesn’t operate the way the world does. In so many ways, it’s upside down from everything we’re taught to pursue.

Every morning when I walk into work, there’s a man sitting at the front desk. He’s probably in his seventies, and while I’ve never asked him directly, I suspect he’s a man of faith. He puts on his dress clothes each day, wears his badge, and greets everyone who walks through those doors. Without fail, he looks up, smiles, and offers a warm hello. There’s a button behind his desk that calls the elevator, and he presses it every time someone is waiting, even when he is busy. It doesn’t matter if it’s early morning or late at night, he greets each person the same way, with kindness, attentiveness, and a genuine desire to help.

One evening as I walked past him, I found myself wondering about his life. I don’t know his story. I don’t know what his home looks like or what circumstances brought him to this job in this season. Most people don’t picture themselves working at a front desk in their seventies. By the world’s standards, this wouldn’t be considered a position of success. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t come with an impressive title or a business card that turns heads.

But I couldn’t shake the thought that what I was witnessing in him looked a lot like peace.

Every single day, he uses what’s in front of him to make people feel seen. He treats everyone the same, business professionals, visitors, even the occasional homeless person who comes into the building. There’s no shift in his demeanor, no change in how he offers respect and kindness. It’s consistent. It’s intentional. It’s genuine.

I couldn’t help but think, what if this is exactly what faithfulness looks like?

In Luke 16:10, we’re reminded that whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. So I find myself wondering how heaven measures a life like his. While the world might overlook it, I don’t believe God does. I don’t believe God sees a man behind a desk, I believe He sees someone who faithfully stewards every small interaction, every moment, every opportunity to reflect kindness and dignity to others.

We’re told throughout Scripture to love our neighbors, to care for the vulnerable, to live lives marked by kindness and humility. Those are not small things. Those are the things that last. And yet, so often, we trade them for opportunities that promise success, influence, or financial gain, only to find those things don’t satisfy the way we expected.

The truth is, success in the kingdom of God isn’t measured by titles or bank accounts. It’s measured by what we do with what we’ve been given. It’s measured in faithfulness, in obedience, in the quiet, everyday ways we show up and reflect Christ to the people around us.

You Were Designed With Specific Gifts

I remember a time early in my career when we were asked to set annual goals, something many workplaces require. It can be a meaningful exercise, but if I’m honest, at that point in my life it felt more like just another task to check off the list. So I sat down one morning, spent about twenty minutes, and wrote out a couple of pages of goals for the year.

Later that day, a coworker asked me if I had finished mine. I told him I had and showed him what I’d written. He looked at the pages, then looked back at me and said, “You wrote this this morning?”

I said yes.

He looked at me and said, “Rhonda, that is a serious gift.”

I don’t know that I had ever really thought about it that way before. Writing was just something that came naturally to me. It wasn’t something I struggled through or labored over, it was simply how I processed and expressed things. But in that moment, I began to see it differently. Not as something ordinary, but as something I had been given.

What’s interesting is that this same coworker, who is still a friend to this day, has gifts that I don’t have at all. He has an incredible ability to connect with people. He can walk into a room and make anyone feel like family within minutes. He shares his faith openly and comfortably, and people are drawn to him because of it. There are times I’ve watched him and thought, I wish I had that.

But the truth is, God didn’t create me to be him.

He created me to be quieter. More reflective. More likely to sit down and write something that reaches one person deeply rather than speak to a room full of people at once. I tend to keep a smaller circle, to build relationships more slowly, to lead in ways that aren’t always visible on the surface. And for a long time, I wasn’t sure if that was enough.

But it is, because it’s how I was designed.

In Ephesians 2:10, we’re reminded that “we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” That means we are not random. We are not accidental. The way we are wired, the things that come naturally to us, the things that bring us joy, the ways we connect and contribute, those are intentional.

And yet, the world constantly tells us we should be good at everything. That we should improve every weakness, master every skill, and become well-rounded in every possible way. When we inevitably fall short of that impossible standard, we begin to see our limitations as failures.

But what if they’re not?

What if the things you’re not good at were never meant to define you in the first place? Isn’t the only One who is truly good at everything God Himself?

When you stop and really think about the things you are good at, the things that feel natural, the things you enjoy, the things that seem to come alive in you, don't you feel a sense of identity? That God has placed something inside of you that reflects Him in a unique way?

For me, it shows up in quiet ways. I love to cook. I enjoy sewing. I love to write. I’m drawn to creative things, but in the background, not at the center of attention. I can sit at home and watch a game and cheer on my team, but I would never want to be the one in the spotlight playing on the field.

I have friends who are the exact opposite. They are warm, outgoing, vibrant, and naturally draw people in. They are the center of the room, and they thrive there. That is their gift. While I can admire it, I don’t need to become it, because that’s not how God designed me.

And the same is true for you.

Maybe your gift is encouraging others. Maybe it’s creating something beautiful, painting, writing, music. Maybe you have a mind that sees patterns and solves problems. Maybe you have patience that steadies a chaotic room. Maybe you’re the person who notices the one who feels left out and quietly pulls them in.

Whatever it is, it matters.

There is no one else who will live your life, carry your experiences, and use your gifts in exactly the same way. Even when people share similar abilities, they express them differently. A singer doesn’t sound like every other singer. A writer doesn’t write like every other writer. And thank goodness for that, because the beauty of God’s creation is found in its variety.

God doesn’t create copies, He creates individuals.

The enemy would love nothing more than to convince you that because you’re not good at everything, you’re somehow not enough. But that simply isn’t true. The things you are good at, the ways you are naturally wired, those are the very places you are meant to lean in, to grow, and to use for His purposes.

Your limitations are not failures.  They are boundaries that point you back to your design.  

Growth Doesn’t Always Mean Saying Yes

Sometimes obedience looks like saying no.

About three weeks before this opportunity was even formally presented to me, I had a sense it was coming. There had been a few comments, a few hints, just enough to make me aware that something might be headed my way. And almost immediately, before anything was official, I felt a quiet hesitation rise up in me. 

It wasn’t loud or dramatic, but it was there. Looking back, I recognize it for what it was, the Holy Spirit gently preparing my heart. Isn’t it amazing how God is always ahead of us, already present in situations we haven’t even fully stepped into yet? Even then, I had a sense that this opportunity wasn’t the right fit for me. But just because you sense something doesn’t mean you immediately settle it. There was still a wrestling that had to take place between God and me, because sometimes opportunities appeal to our ego while quietly stealing our peace.

I’ve recently started a new workout routine in the mornings, and before we ever get into the hardest part of it, we spend time stretching. While I don’t always love getting up early to do it, the stretching itself is actually good. It prepares my body, prevents injury, and gets me ready for what’s ahead. That’s what healthy growth looks like. It may not always be comfortable, but it strengthens you. It works with your design, not against it. It stretches you in a way that allows you to become stronger.

But doing something outside of your calling, something that constantly pulls you away from how you were created to function, that’s not stretching. That’s pushing yourself to the point of injury. And injury doesn’t produce growth; it prevents it. It puts you on the sideline, unable to contribute.  I've had to learn not every stretch is healthy growth. 

Galatians 1:10 says For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?  Or am I trying to please man?  If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.  Paul asks, who are we truly trying to please?  We can’t build our lives around making everyone else happy and God happy at the same time. 

When we spend our lives trying to meet everyone else’s expectations, we end up exhausted, stretched thin, and disconnected from the very purpose God created us for. Trying to keep everyone happy is not growth, it’s something that ends up hurting us. God never asks us to manage the expectations of everyone around us. He knows that’s impossible. What He does ask is obedience.

So at the end of the day, no title, no opportunity, no accomplishment, no matter how impressive it may look, has any real value if it pulls us outside of God’s will for our lives. You can stand on a stage, receive recognition, achieve everything the world tells you to chase, and still be completely misaligned with what God intended for you. True growth is not found in saying yes to everything. 

It’s found in the courage to say no when God is asking you to.

This week I had to take my car into the shop. It wasn’t anything catastrophic, but she’s an older car now with a lot of miles on her. A lot of miles. Every time I bring her in, the technicians give me a smile and say something along the lines of, “It’s unusual to see this model of car with so many miles on it.” Yes, I know. But that’s my car, and she’s been faithful.

When a car has lived a long life on the road, it needs attention. I take my car in regularly so she can get all the care she needs, oil changes, inspections, and the occasional repair that comes with age. This week it was the usual maintenance, but there was something else that needed attention. The horn had stopped working. Now, a horn might not seem like a big deal, but it matters. A horn is what warns people not to run into you. A horn can save your life.  Or at least your bumper.

The problem was that I had absolutely no idea how to fix it. I couldn’t diagnose the root of the problem, and I certainly couldn’t repair it. So I did the only thing I could do. I handed the car over to the people who actually knew what they were doing and left it in their hands. For two days she sat in the shop while the technicians worked on her. Eventually they called to say she was ready. They had fixed the horn, changed the oil, addressed a few other small issues, topped off the windshield wiper fluid, and she was good to go. Once again, she and I were reunited.

As I drove away, it struck me that life with God often works the same way. There are situations where we simply do not have the expertise to fix what’s wrong. We want control. We want solutions. We want to be the ones who figure it out and put everything back together again. But sometimes the situation in front of us is far beyond our ability to repair.

I learned that lesson the hard way years ago when my seven-year-old son was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I remember the stress of those days so clearly. As his surgery approached, the doctor even offered medication to help my son with anxiety. My son wasn’t the one who needed it. His mother was.

Because the truth was, I didn’t have the expertise to fix what was wrong. I didn’t have the knowledge or the skill, and I didn’t even have the ability to influence the outcome. The doctors had to handle the surgery. And even they were not ultimately in control.

In moments like that, you discover something very quickly: there are situations in life where control simply isn’t an option. You are left with only two choices. You can drive yourself crazy with worry, or you can trust God. And when everything else is out of your hands, trusting Him is the only option that leaves room for peace.

We Are Not the Experts in Our Own Problems

One of the things the technician explained to me when I picked up the car was that the horn itself wasn’t really the problem. The horn was just the symptom. The real issue was in the electrical system. Something deeper in the wiring had gone wrong, and that problem happened to show up first through the horn. In other words, what looked like a small issue was actually connected to something much larger that needed attention.

The same thing is often true in our lives.

Sometimes a symptom shows up and that is all we can see. Maybe we feel unusually angry. Maybe we feel stressed, discouraged, or overwhelmed. We can often identify the moment that triggered the feeling, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we understand the real cause. Just like with my car, the thing that appears on the surface is not always the root of the problem.

This can play out in very ordinary situations. Someone might be deeply upset after being passed over for a raise at work. And yes, that can certainly be disappointing. But sometimes the depth of the reaction isn’t really about the raise at all. It may be touching something much deeper, a lifetime of feeling overlooked, dismissed, or rejected.

I have also seen it in small everyday moments. I have watched exhausted mothers in the middle of a grocery store aisle snap at their toddlers. At first glance it might look like the child was simply being terribly difficult. But sometimes the toddler wasn’t the real issue at all. Sometimes mom was simply worn down, running on empty, feeling unseen and unappreciated after carrying the weight of a thousand small responsibilities.

The reaction becomes the visible symptom, but the wiring underneath tells a much deeper story.

I have seen this in my own life as well. I remember a particularly dry season when I found myself praying a very simple prayer: God, I don’t even know why I feel this terrible. It wasn’t one obvious crisis or one clear problem. It was something deeper that I couldn’t immediately explain. And the truth is, it has taken years to slowly unravel those layers.

Sometimes the symptoms show up as questions we quietly carry inside ourselves. Why am I so quick to anger? Why do I struggle to believe that anyone truly loves me? Why do I react so strongly to things that seem small? When those moments appear, it’s easy to turn the blame inward and conclude that we are simply failures. We tell ourselves, I shouldn’t have reacted that way. I shouldn’t have said that. I should be better than this.

But so often those reactions are simply revealing something deeper in the wiring that needs attention and healing.  And this is where our limitations become clear. We can usually describe the symptom. We can say, “The horn doesn’t work.” But diagnosing the deeper issue requires a level of knowledge that we simply don’t have.

In the same way, we need a Creator who understands us completely. God knows what is happening within us. He sees the deeper wiring of our hearts, the things we cannot always explain even to ourselves. He also sees the bigger picture of our lives in a way we never will. Sometimes He chooses to reveal parts of that picture to us, and sometimes He doesn’t.

I believe mental health professionals are incredibly important. Therapy has been a meaningful part of my own life, and there have been seasons where medication has helped as well. Those resources matter, and they are gifts that should never be dismissed.

But I have also learned that long-term healing requires my Savior.  He knows what is truly going on beneath the surface. He understands the wiring of my heart better than I ever will, and He sees the places that need repair long before the symptoms appear.

Control Is an Illusion

When my son faced brain surgery, everything about that situation was outside of my control. One of the hardest parts, looking back, was the waiting. Cancer is a long game of waiting. You wait for the next appointment, the next scan, the next set of answers. You wait for the phone to ring. You wait for someone to tell you what the next step will be. There is always another stretch of time where you simply have to sit and live with uncertainty.

I remember how desperately I wanted to be busy during those seasons. I wanted to be calling doctors, researching treatments, advocating for my son, doing something, anything, that would make me feel like I was helping move the situation forward. And to be fair, those things are important. I did learn that you should always advocate for your health and ask questions. But at the end of the day, there were limits to what any of us could do.

There came a point where the doctors had done what they could do, and we were left with the reality that the outcome was simply not in our hands. Would surgery work?  Would it not?  That position of uncertainty did not last for two days, or five days, or even ten days. It lasted for years. Even now, every scan carries a moment where we hold our breath. 

Even after walking through something that profound, I cannot pretend that I have fully mastered this lesson. There are still many situations that cause me to worry. I wake up at night worried. I drive home in the car worried. I fill pages of my journal trying to process the worry. Because in my case, and I suspect in many others, worry is often an attempt to reclaim control over something that the mind simply cannot control.

But Jesus asked a question in the Gospel of Matthew that cuts directly to the heart of the matter: “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” The answer, of course, is no. Worry feels active, but it accomplishes nothing. It does not change outcomes. It does not alter the future. It simply consumes the present.

When I step back and really examine the things that trouble me day after day, I realize something humbling: most of them are situations I cannot control at all. Not the outcome. Not the timing. Not the decisions of other people. Not the future.

The only things truly within my control are my actions, my responses, and whether I will choose to release the situation to God. And in the circumstances that cause the greatest anxiety and stress in my life, that is the only control I truly have.

Trust Is the Only Real Option

When we reach the edge of our control, we are left with a choice. We can keep grasping for answers, trying to maintain control over situations that are far beyond our reach. Or we can turn the situation over to the One who truly does have control and trust Him with the outcome. The interesting thing is that whichever path we choose does not actually change how much control we have. We never had control over the outcome in the first place. What it does change is something else entirely, our level of stress, our level of worry, and the peace we carry as we walk through the situation.

Have you ever noticed that God often grows us through a process? It doesn’t seem to be the end result that changes us as much as the journey of getting there. The waiting, the uncertainty, and the moments where we realize we simply cannot manage everything ourselves are often the places where something inside us begins to shift.

It seems to me that God often allows us to walk through situations where we do not have control because He is teaching us to trust Him. At least that has certainly been true in my life. Again and again I have found myself in circumstances where there was nothing I could do to change the outcome, nothing I could manipulate, nothing I could fix. All I could do was bring the situation before God and place it in His hands.

My role is not to fix everything or to understand everything. My role is to remain faithful, to pray, to bring my petitions before Him, and to place the outcomes in the hands of the One who truly does have the knowledge, the wisdom, and the authority over it all.

And over time I have discovered something surprising. Even when the ending is not what I prayed for, the process of walking through it with God has always brought me closer to Him. Every single time.

So often I feel the urge to take control of a situation, to fix something, to solve it, to make it turn out the way I think it should. And yet, God asks something much simpler of me. He asks me to show up. He asks me to love the people in front of me. H calls me to faithfulness in the middle of the situation rather than control over it.

In the end, everything is in His hands.  And the more I learn to release my grip on control, the more I discover that His hands are the safest place for it to be.

There are some wounds that take a long time to heal.

I have wrestled with my relationship with my father. I have walked through the unraveling of a marriage. When two people move through the strain of divorce, there are misunderstandings, disappointments, and words that hurt longer than we expect. 

Unforgiveness does not usually show up loudly in my life. It is quieter than that. It surfaces in small memories. It reappears in moments when I thought I had already moved past it. The deeper the hurt, the more easily it seems to revisit me.  And for whatever unknown reason, this week it seemed to reappear often.  My mind kept wanting to revisit hurts from the past, dwell on them, and remind me of how I had been wronged by people who were closest to me.

For a long time my prayer has been, God, help me to forgive. And sometimes it still is. But lately I have been wondering if the plea itself keeps my focus fixed in the wrong place. What if instead of asking for help to forgive, I begin by asking how I serve Him in the midst of this? Because when I try to produce forgiveness through sheer effort, I feel tired. I feel like I am trying to manufacture something holy out of my own limited strength. 

Instead of replaying what was taken from me, perhaps I need to anchor myself in what was given to me. Instead of quietly waiting for apologies or understanding, perhaps I need to deepen my attention toward the One who sees the whole story. Scripture tells us that on the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished.” Those words were not spoken casually. They meant the work was complete. The debt was satisfied. The weight of sin was carried fully by Him.

I've been revisiting those particular scriptures and it reminds me that I am not responsible for settling every account. I am not required to secure my own justice. Christ has already done what I could never do on my own.

Perhaps forgiveness is less about forcing myself to feel differently and more about loosening my grip. Less about striving and more about surrender. Control often tightens the pain. But surrender, placing the story back into God’s hands, brings a different perspective. It sounds like this: Lord, You see this. You know what I felt. You know what was lost. I trust You with what I cannot repair.

When I dwell on what I believe I deserve, bitterness quietly grows. When I dwell on who He is, something steadier begins to grow instead. We sometimes live as though this life must resolve every hurt, as though this world is the final place where justice is decided. But it is not. There is more beyond this moment.

The cross tells me I do not have to carry the weight of vindication. It tells me that even the sins committed against me are not outside the reach of what Christ accomplished. Forgiveness, then, is not pretending the pain was insignificant. It is trusting that God is the ultimate healer.

It is finished.

And because of that, I can slowly, imperfectly, begin again.

Naming the Lingering Hurt

In this life, we are constantly brushing up against hurt. It is part of the human experience. We are hurt by family members, by spouses, by coworkers, by friends. Sometimes we are hurt by people who barely know us. Sometimes we are hurt by people who know us best. Turn on the news and the world’s pain is on display. Rejection, betrayal, violence, division...it surrounds us.

One of the things I look forward to about heaven is that there will come a day when hurt no longer touches us daily. A day when rejection does not revisit our thoughts. A day when love is no longer strained by sin.

In my own life, and I suspect in many others, rejection has been one of the deepest wounds. There is something uniquely piercing about being dismissed or misunderstood by someone whose acceptance mattered to you. Whether it is rejection from a parent, a spouse, a child, or even a close friend, it leaves a mark. I am not sure there is anything quite as painful as feeling unseen or unwanted by someone whose opinion carried weight.

And yet, Christ knew rejection intimately. He was misunderstood by His own people. He was mocked, abandoned, and denied. Even Peter, one of His closest companions, rejected Him in one of His most vulnerable moments. Jesus knew what it felt like to stand alone while those He loved stepped away. He knew what it felt like to be ridiculed while hanging on a cross, beaten and humiliated, though He had done nothing wrong.

What has always astonished me is not simply that He endured rejection, it is that He continued to love in the middle of it. Can we ever understand that kind of love? Why would He continue to love humanity after such cruelty? Why would He remain committed to a people who turned away? And yet He did.

Whatever the rejection, I am not alone in it. Rejection is a deep wound. It requires attention. It requires gentleness and patience. If left unattended, it can quietly plant itself deeper in the heart. It can grow into bitterness or anger. It can erode confidence. It can whisper the lie that we are not good enough.

No matter who rejects us, no matter who implies that we are lacking, our identity was never meant to be handed over to another human being. We were born with an identity as children of the Most High God. Our worth was spoken before anyone else had the chance to evaluate it. God has already declared that we are loved. He has already demonstrated our value, not with words alone, but with sacrifice. He endured separation, humiliation, and suffering so that we could belong to Him.

If we could keep our eyes steady on what God says about us, perhaps the rejection from people would not cut as deeply. It might still hurt, because we are human, but it would not define us. In the end, what shapes us most is what we choose to believe. The world has its narrative. Pain has its narrative. But God has spoken, too.

No earthly rejection can compete with the love that carried Christ to the cross. No dismissal from a human heart can undo the identity given by the One who created us. The Savior who was rejected made a way for us to be fully accepted. That is the foundation we can always return to when rejection tries to whisper its lies deep within our heart.

Shifting the Question

Scripture clearly calls us to forgive those who hurt us. And yet I find myself returning to the same struggle again and again. I pray about it, think through it, even genuinely desire to forgive, but the emotions sometimes resurface months or even years later. When that happens, it is tempting to assume that means I have failed.  If anger returns, perhaps I had not truly forgiven. If the memory still hurts, maybe my heart has not changed enough.

But over time I have begun to realize something important: remembering pain is part of being human.

From a psychological standpoint, our minds hold on to emotional experiences very strongly. Painful memories are stored in ways that allow them to resurface when something reminds us of them...a conversation, a season of life, a familiar place, or even an unexpected thought. In many ways this is simply how our minds process and heal. Healing rarely happens all at once. It tends to unfold in layers. Because of that, emotions may revisit us from time to time. Hurt may rise again. Anger may briefly return. When that happens, it can feel discouraging, as though we are starting over.

But perhaps those moments are not signs of failure.  Perhaps they are invitations.

Instead of viewing those resurfacing emotions as proof that we have not forgiven, what if we saw them as opportunities to draw closer to God? Moments that gently remind us that we cannot carry the work of healing alone. Some wounds take time to settle, and each time the memory rises again we are given another chance to place it back into God's hands.

Because if forgiveness ultimately depends on my own willpower, I already know the outcome. I have tried to reason my way into forgiveness. I have tried to discipline my thoughts, to convince my heart to feel differently than it does. But forgiveness that depends entirely on my own strength tends to feel fragile.

And maybe that is because forgiveness was never meant to originate with me.

Jesus once described our relationship with Him using the image of a vine and branches. In the Gospel of John 15, He explains that He is the vine and we are the branches. A branch does not produce fruit through effort. Fruit appears because life is flowing into it from the vine. The same is true in the spiritual life. The qualities Scripture calls the fruit of the Spirit (love, patience, kindness, gentleness) are not traits we manufacture through determination. They grow within us as we remain connected to Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to shape our hearts.

Forgiveness often grows from that same place. When I try to produce forgiveness through sheer effort, it feels forced and temporary. But when I return to God again and again, when I pray, when I sit with Scripture, when I simply remember who He is, something begins to shift quietly inside me. The Spirit softens places that once felt rigid. Love slowly begins to replace resentment in ways I could not create on my own.

Sometimes that means forgiving more than once. Sometimes it means releasing the same hurt again when it resurfaces. But each time becomes another step in the process of healing, another moment of returning to the One who carries what I cannot. Just as fruit grows because a branch remains connected to the vine, forgiveness grows as we remain connected to Christ.

The Cross Settled What I Cannot

As I continue to wrestle with forgiveness, my thoughts often return to the cross.

When Jesus spoke His final words there, He said, “It is finished.” In the Gospel of John, those words mark the completion of the work He came to accomplish. The debt of sin had been paid. The weight humanity could never carry on its own had been taken fully upon Him.

For a long time I thought about those words primarily in terms of my own failures.  They represented the sins I needed forgiveness for, the ways I had fallen short. And that is certainly part of what the cross means. Christ took on the burden of our sin so that we could be reconciled to God.

But the longer I reflect on it, the more I realize something else.  The cross does not only speak to the sins we have committed. It also speaks to the sins committed against us.

Every act of cruelty, betrayal, rejection, or injustice ultimately falls within the brokenness that Christ came to confront. Nothing that has wounded us escapes the reach of what He carried on the cross. That does not mean the hurt was small, and it does not mean the actions of others were acceptable. But it does mean that I am not responsible for settling the final account.

There is a deep human desire for things to be made right. When someone hurts us, part of us longs for acknowledgment, for apology, for justice. Those desires are not strange; they reflect something within us that recognizes when something is wrong. Yet if I place my peace in whether another person eventually understands the pain they caused, I place my peace in something I cannot control.

The cross reminds me that the ultimate judgment of every wrong does not belong to me.  Christ has already stepped into the center of humanity’s brokenness and declared that sin will not have the final word. He absorbed what we could not repair ourselves. The justice of God was not ignored; it was satisfied in Him.

That truth does not erase the hurt I have experienced, but it does release me from carrying the burden of vengeance. I do not have to demand repayment in order to move forward. I do not have to hold tightly to resentment as a way of protecting my sense of justice.

The cross tells me that God sees everything clearly. Nothing is hidden from Him, and nothing escapes His authority.  Because of that, forgiveness becomes less about pretending the hurt did not happen and more about trusting that God is capable of handling what I cannot.

When Jesus said “It is finished,” He was not only speaking about a moment in history. He was announcing that the work necessary to restore us to God had been completed. The battle against sin had already been decided.

And that changes how I hold my own wounds.

I can begin to loosen my grip on them, not because they were insignificant, but because Christ has already carried more than I ever could.