The prison of unforgiveness: how to break free
"Bear with each other and forgive one another... Forgive as the Lord forgave you." — Colossians 3:13
Over the past few episodes of Kingdom Chaos, Amy and I have shared some of the most painful parts of our marriage story. We've talked about the drift that slowly separated us, the emotional affair that nearly destroyed everything, and how Jesus redeemed a relationship we couldn't fix on our own. After sharing our testimony, one question kept coming back to me: How do you actually forgive something that deep?
Maybe your story isn't about marriage. Maybe someone you trusted betrayed you. Maybe it's a parent who wounded you, a close friend who walked away, a business partner who deceived you, or someone who spoke words that still echo in your mind years later. Whatever your story looks like, the pain is real. The scars are real. And if you've ever tried to forgive someone who deeply hurt you, you know forgiveness is much easier to talk about than it is to practice.
In church we often hear words like grace, mercy, and forgiveness, and they sound beautiful. But forgiveness isn't just a theological idea. It's something we have to wrestle with in the middle of real pain. When someone wounds us, something inside us naturally wants justice. We want answers. We want the other person to understand the damage they've caused. Sometimes we even convince ourselves that holding on to the hurt will somehow protect us from being hurt again. I used to think that too. What I eventually learned is that bitterness doesn't protect us—it imprisons us. We build walls around our hearts believing they're keeping us safe, but eventually those same walls become the prison we live in.
That's why Jesus spoke so often about forgiveness. He never treated it as an optional part of the Christian life. He treated it as a path to freedom. Forgiveness doesn't erase what happened, and it certainly doesn't pretend the pain wasn't real. Forgiveness is choosing to release the debt instead of carrying it for the rest of your life.
For me, healing began with honesty. I had to stop pretending everything was fine. It would have been easy to focus only on the hurt I experienced through Amy's emotional affair, but God wouldn't let me stop there. As He began working in my heart, He exposed things I didn't want to see. I had to admit my own selfishness, my pride, my controlling nature, my poor communication, and the emotional neglect that had slowly created distance in our marriage. I had spent years believing that if Amy would just change, everything would be better. Instead, God showed me how much I needed to change.
That kind of honesty is painful, but it's necessary because healing can't begin where truth is ignored. Before I could forgive anyone else, I had to receive God's forgiveness for myself. First John 1:9 reminds us that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I had heard that verse before, but there came a moment when I finally believed it personally. God wasn't reluctantly forgiving me. He was freely extending grace because that's who He is.
Once I truly accepted God's forgiveness, I realized something else. If the Creator of the universe had chosen to forgive me, I no longer had the right to continue condemning myself. Many of us live with shame long after Christ has already removed it. We believe God forgives us, but we refuse to forgive ourselves. That's not humility; it's refusing to believe what God has already declared to be true. Accepting His forgiveness gave me the freedom to stop living under the weight of my failures and begin walking in His grace.
Only then was I ready to genuinely forgive Amy. Forgiveness didn't mean pretending nothing had happened. It didn't erase the consequences of our choices, and it certainly didn't restore trust overnight. Forgiveness and trust are not the same thing. Forgiveness can happen in a single moment of surrender before God, but trust is rebuilt one honest conversation, one consistent action, and one faithful day at a time. Forgiveness simply created space for healing to begin.
One of the most difficult but life-changing practices God taught me was praying for the person who had hurt me. At first, those prayers didn't come naturally. If I'm honest, sometimes they felt forced. But as I consistently brought my hurt before God instead of carrying it by myself, something remarkable happened. He slowly transformed my heart. My prayers changed from asking God to fix someone else to asking Him to change me. It's incredibly difficult to remain consumed by bitterness while sincerely praying for someone.
God also challenged me to stop keeping score. Relationships become exhausting when we're constantly measuring who has sacrificed more, who apologized first, or who owes whom. That's not how Jesus loves us, and it's not how He calls us to love others. Forgiveness isn't about deciding who deserves grace. It's about remembering how much grace we've already received.
Another gift God gave us was wise, biblical counseling. Sometimes we need someone outside our situation to help us see what we've become blind to. Our counselor helped us communicate in healthy ways, identify patterns that were damaging our marriage, and begin rebuilding what years of hurt had torn down. God often uses people to bring healing into our lives, and there is no shame in asking for help.
At the same time, I learned that healing requires staying rooted in God's Word. Every day I spent reading Scripture reshaped my thinking. Instead of allowing my emotions to determine my perspective, I allowed God's truth to renew my mind. As He changed my heart on the inside, that transformation naturally began showing up in my attitudes, my words, and my relationships.
Community became another essential part of our healing. Isolation gives bitterness room to grow, but authentic Christian community provides encouragement, accountability, wisdom, and prayer. Amy and I found people who didn't encourage us to walk away from our marriage. Instead, they prayed for our unity, challenged us to keep trusting God, and reminded us that redemption was still possible. Looking back, I can't imagine walking through that season without the support of other believers.
Perhaps one of the biggest lessons I learned is that forgiveness and trust operate on different timelines. Forgiveness is a decision of obedience. Trust is built over time through consistency and faithfulness. We often confuse the two, expecting everything to return to normal immediately after forgiveness is offered. Real healing doesn't work that way. Forgiveness opens the door, but trust walks through it one step at a time.
Today, when I think about forgiveness, I don't think about pretending the past never happened. I think about refusing to let the past define my future. Forgiveness didn't erase our wounds, but it stopped those wounds from becoming my identity. Instead of allowing bitterness to harden my heart, God used forgiveness to soften it.
The truth is, every relationship will experience hurt because every relationship involves imperfect people. We all say things we regret. We all fail one another. We all need grace. The question isn't whether you'll be hurt. The question is what you'll do with that hurt. You can hold on to it until it becomes a prison, or you can place it into the hands of the only One who has the power to redeem it.
I've learned that the strongest marriages, friendships, families, and relationships aren't built because people never make mistakes. They're built because forgiveness makes restoration possible.
Jesus forgave us long before we deserved it.
Because of that, we can choose to forgive others.
And when we do, we discover that forgiveness doesn't just set someone else free.
It sets us free too.
