"Forgiveness"

Have you ever held onto a hurt so deep you didn’t know if you could ever let it go? In this episode of Unrelated Sisters: Truth & Grace Conversation, we’re diving into forgiveness—what it is, what it’s not, and how it sets you free. In this heartfelt episode of, we unpack the power of forgiveness through scripture, story, and honest conversation. Featuring a touching radio story about a father and son, Bible passages from Ephesians, Matthew, and Colossians, and real-life moments of grace, this episode is for anyone carrying hurt. Learn how forgiveness doesn’t excuse the pain—but releases the weight. Join your hosts for a conversation of hope, healing, and freedom.

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:01

Bye.

Speaker 00: 0:14

We thank you for this opportunity, Father, to come into your presence, God. Lord, as we speak today, Lord, you would just give us a bonus in confidence that we need, Lord, to speak your word with truth and grace. And God, I pray for every listener today, God, that this word would just go forth and not return void, God, and it would just set some people free today. In Jesus' name, amen.

Speaker 01: 0:38

Amen. Hey, y'all. Welcome back to Unrelated Sisters Truth and Grace Conversation. I'm Shannon, and I'm joined by an amazing co-host, Deb. Today, we're getting real about something that's easier said than done, forgiveness.

Speaker 00: 0:53

That's right. Forgiveness can feel impossible, especially when the wounds are deep. But God didn't just call us to forgive. He equips us to forgive. And today's episode is full of scripture, encouragement, and one story heard on the radio that moved people. So our theme verse today is Ephesians 4.32. I love this verse. It says, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving on another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Amen.

Speaker 01: 1:26

That is a wonderful verse. So I want to start today with a question. Have you ever had one of those arguments with family, the kind you think you can never come back from? Oh,

Speaker 00: 1:39

yeah. Like the ones that where the words cut deep and, you said some stuff that you thought, oh, we will never get out of this.

Speaker 01: 1:49

Well, this week on the radio, I heard a story and I want to share the store that brought me to tears. There was a father and a son who got into one of those blow-up arguments. The son stormed out. They didn't speak for years. One day, the son felt this aching in his soul, like he just needed to go home. So he wrote his dad a letter. In it, he said, on Friday I will be on the train the one that passes by the big oak tree in the backyard. If you want me to come home then hang a piece of white cloth in the the tree. If I see it I will get of at the next stop. If I don't I see the cloth I understand. The day came. The son was nervous. A passenger noticed and asked what was wrong. He told them the story. And when they neared the house, he said, the tree's on your side. Can you look? The passenger turned and looked and said, son, there's not one cloth. There are dozens. Forgiveness makes a way home. So hearing that story, I just bawled in my car after the DJ told the story because that forgiveness God does for us everyday, right? He forgave us for everything that He knew we were going to do, for everything that we've done. And He didn't just hang one white claw. He's hung one for everything we've ever done, right? And to feel that or to understand that, it just blows my mind. I cried like a baby for like 20 minutes after hearing this.

Speaker 00: 3:24

I love that. Sometimes we think that forgiveness means that what happened didn't hurt us, but it doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean trust is automatically restored. We think that it's just going to happen. It's just going to happen. And that's not

Speaker 01: 3:48

always the case. Just because we forgive somebody doesn't mean we have to forget, right? There's those things that's happened to us in life, those traumatic things that's happened to us. The things that we can't come back from, but with Gods grace we can heal. There's those things that maybe we did to someone, right? I remember when I was getting high that... People were doormats, what did you have for me? I didn't have friends. I didn't have people that I truly loved. They were all doormats. They, were ponds in my game, and they were only around as long as I needed them, Right? And I never did 12 steps. And so I don't know anything about those programs, but I do know that one of those is you're supposed to go and ask for forgiveness from the people that you did wrong, you know, and I don't know that I did that with people that I did wrong. I separated myself from those people because most of them are drug addicts, just like me, drug dealers, just like me, all those different things. But, uh, there was people in my life that I should have asked forgiveness from, you know, and I didn't right away. I just kind of let, hope time would heal, heal all wounds. Right. And I feel like sometimes you have to ask for forgiveness. You need to ask for forgiveness because you don't, ask for forgiveness or you don't give forgiveness for that person, right? You do it for yourself. Whether it's asking for it or getting it or giving it to someone, you know, you're going to ask for it. Forgiveness will give you freedom. It will release you from the debts so that you don't do it again and pretend that it didn't happen. And that is my thing, right? Pretending like it just didn't happen. That's what I like to do.

Speaker 00: 5:42

You know, I've heard a lot of people in my life when I was out in addiction, and my kids, my family, and I had a lot of things done to me. And so, I think it was easy for me to forgive people, realistically. I don't know if it's just because I was you know, I wanted that same grace, or I just didn't want to think about it, or I just wanted to pretend like it didn't happen. So, I mean, there were some traumatic things that happened to me as a young child that a lot of people don't know, you know what I mean? Maybe one day we'll go into detail, but I didn't even talk about it for, I don't know, maybe 10 or 15 years. And I just acted like it didn't happen. And then, you know, I told my parents about it one day, and, well, they just went crazy, and I had forgave the person, but it was still there. You know what I mean? Of course, that hurt was still there. I thought I had forgave them. But then when I openly talked about it, when I finally told my parents about it, it was like, oh wait, there's more. You know what I mean? You've got to talk about it. You've got to get through this. I think a lot of times as women, we just... cover things up and we want to pretend like, oh, it's okay. It didn't happen. In reality, it did. And when I finally went and actually, I didn't go to the person to tell them I forgave them, but I told God that I forgave them. And there was peace. There's freedom. I don't even think about it anymore until things like this do come up. And I'm like, trying to think, you know what I mean? Right. We don't have unforgiveness. And I'm like, Well, I thank you for healing me from that because, you know, a lot of times I feel like in my addiction that was a trigger. That was things that I would think about and be like, oh, and then I would go be high over it or, you know, this happened to me. But once I did actually forgive this person, it started bringing healing to my life. Eventually, I don't remember it anymore. You know

Speaker 01: 7:55

what I mean? Right. It's not the first thing that pops in your head. Yeah. Yeah, at the age of 28, I was diagnosed with PTSD. And the PTSD doesn't come because I went to war or that I've ever been a police officer or any of those jobs. I've never done anything like that. But it comes from the trauma that I went through, through my addiction and pretending like it didn't happen, right? Not dealing with it at the time. The counselor that I had seen who diagnosed me, she was like, you know, there's a lot there and I'm like, Oh no, I'm fine. Right. Like there we are again. I'm fine. It's fine. It's all fine. Right. Um, just like in last week's thing, you know, those words there we are again with I'm fine, you know, and, uh, but that was part of the reason I couldn't bond with my kid. Right. Because I just didn't, I just didn't deal. So I didn't have emotions. Right. And PTSD is real. Like, um, and it, you know, it triggers, um, Certain things in life trigger that, and I've had incidents happen since that have triggered the fear. It's the flight or fight fear. But I haven't had one since I found grace. I've not had that. I've not lost that. I've not had that anxiety. I've not had that need. You know, to do other things, to not think about it. I've been able to talk about my abusive relationships. I've been able to talk about the... The trauma that happened the first time, the reason I started drinking and partying and the reason that I just kind of quit life. And I've been able to surpass all of those things. And it's not like it happened today or it happened yesterday or it happened a year down the road, right? It's taken several, several years and a lot of counseling. Last week we talked about finding that safe person to talk to. And that is crucial. You've got to have it. You've got to dive into the word and you've got to dive into your prayer and you've got to dive into Jesus, but you've also got to have that human there that you can, that you can talk to. And usually it's better if it's a stranger, right? It's easier to open up to a stranger than it is to open up to people that love you or people that you feel like are going to judge you, you know, and that's one of the things. But when we talk about forgiveness, I'll, My sister, she's four years younger than me, and my daddy used to think that if he made her go with me, that I wouldn't do stupid things. Well, I would do stupid things, and I would drag her right along with me. And when I took a left and started getting high and partying all the time and stuff, she didn't. She continued to get straight A's, and she continued. She went to college, and she got a degree in early education, and she met the man of her dreams and they got married and they bought, you know, they bought several houses and they've, they've always seemed to have their life together. And I guess it's probably about six months ago. She calls me up, we're having lunch and she's like, I read this study and I didn't realize that everybody wasn't like me. And I was like, what are you talking about? Smart? You know? And she's like, no, she's like, There's like 5% of the population that don't worry about things, and I'm one of those people. And she goes, and you used to make me so mad when we were kids and then when we were adults, because you would be mad about something or hurt about something, and then the next day it was like it didn't happen. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, right? But that's how I am. So if I worry about something today... When I lay my head down, I give it to God. And when I get up the next morning, I don't think no more about it. Right. Now the devil or the enemy will whisper things into my ears and, you know, make me think about something from two weeks ago or make me, I'm not saying that that doesn't happen because it does, but you know, you have to make a decision sometimes. Right. And in Matthew 6, 14 and 15, it says, if you forgive others, your father will forgive you. You know, if you forgive others right so sometimes it's not about forgiving others sometimes it's about asking for forgiveness that was where my story was going so

Speaker 00: 12:34

you know one of the things that when we talk about forgiveness that i always come to me and you talked about this earlier um you know me and kevin had a lot We did a lot of things to each other. He was very abusive, and we talked openly about this because that was in our past. That's not who we are today. He's wonderful today, just for the record. He is. But there was a lot of abuse, and there was a lot of fighting, and there was infidelity on both parts. And when he went to prison the last time, I really just wanted—I was ready for the worst. And so when the word— told me that wasn't going to happen. That's why I prayed about it. We made the decision, both of us, that if we were going to make this work, we were going to forgive each other. So we both asked for forgiveness, and we both made the decision that we weren't going to bring up anything that we had done to each other. If we were going to make this marriage work, and God was going to restore this, I wanted Him to restore it. Completely. Only our marriage should be whole. And so for me, back in the day, I was a tip or tap person. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. I'm going to get you back even more. It was very revengeful. But the Lord took all that. He literally took all that. It's amazing, right? And so that is one thing I'm so proud of, that when we do have disagreements and we have arguments like people do, marriage couples do, We don't bring up our past. We do not bring up, never one time in these past four years since the Lord has restored us, do we bring up anything that has

Speaker 01: 14:20

happened. You know, and that right there, that one statement that you just said, that shows you, to me, in my eyes, the power of God, right? Because if you choose, if... you know, if someone has broken your trust, right, that's the hardest thing to come back from. And then if you choose to stay in that and you choose to stay in that marriage, then you have to make those decisions, right? Like you can't, you can't be like every time something happens or every time somebody doesn't come home on time, you can't be that way, right? You can't be, you can't be on, you know, social media and you can't be you know, looking through their phone and, and thinking all every time in the back of your head, you know, and, and that's one of the things that, you know, I talked about my daddy last week, right. And about not, um, trusting, you know, not, uh, when he doesn't contact me, right. What's he doing? What's he up to? Right. Uh, you know, and, and that's one of those, that's one of those, he's asked for forgiveness, right. Uh, when we, uh, He went through drug court, and he's been clean since drug court. But he went through drug court, and one of the steps in drug court is the people that he's hurt, he has to bring them in with his counselor, and he has to just sit there and listen to anything and everything we say. And me and my sister did it, and that was very healing for me, right? I have always been a daddy's girl, and my daddy... did no wrong and then when I finally seen the wrong that he was doing or when I finally understood what it means to be a parent and love your child unconditionally and I'm not saying my daddy didn't love me because he did he loved me the only way he knew how but you know just to be able to tell him you know because my daddy taught me to be the world's greatest manipulator like You know, it's all about what Shannon wanted and what Shannon needed. And, you know, and I learned at an early age how to be the world's greatest manipulator. And which now I can't do it to save my life. right? Like I can't, right? Like now I can't, I try, you know, sometimes I catch myself sliding into it or whatever. And then I feel so guilty. Like I have to just shut up. And that's weird for me because that's how I've been for, you know, that was how I was for, I feel like half my life, you know, and, but that's the forgiveness, right? That's where God has forgiven me for the choices that I've made. And, and, and that's that, um, what is it? That angel that taps on that shoulder and be like, Hmm, Do you really want to do that? And those are hard to deal with sometimes. But God knows our pain, and He knows our bitterness, and He knows how slow and poisonous it can be. That's why you have to forgive people. Everybody's like, I can forgive them, but I'm not going to forget. If you truly forgive them, and you truly give it to God, then that poison goes away. And you don't have to think about forgetting it because it just goes away. Right? I mean, that's like what you were talking about, like your traumas and things like that, the things in the past. Once you truly lay it down, and I can't, people just don't understand that. And I don't know why they do. I don't know why they don't understand it. But once he gives you forgiveness, he'll whisper to you, you're not doing this for them. You're doing this for yourself. Right? You're doing this for you. Because that's how you heal. Healing has to be the most important part of forgiveness. You can't forgive because of this or can't forgive because of that. You have to forgive because you're ready to heal. I

Speaker 00: 18:27

think one of my favorite statements is, I choose to be better, not bitter. Because bitterness can eat you up. And I just choose not to feel like that anymore.

Speaker 01: 18:39

Right.

Speaker 00: 18:40

And it's a choice.

Speaker 01: 18:41

It is definitely a choice.

Speaker 00: 18:43

And I think that we get into this, I think about this a lot, forgiving people. I feel like I do that easily. Probably I'm my worst enemy. I think that for me, forgiving myself was harder than anybody else because... I had to look at myself in the mirror and think all the things that I've done to my kids and my family. Until I truly, truly forgave myself, the guilt and the shame just keeps you in this vicious cycle. I'm not that person anymore. That's not who I am. Forgive me today. When I truly made those statements, it was like a balloon release. It goes up in the air and just goes away.

Speaker 01: 19:33

Oh, yeah. It's, you know, you hear people talk about this peace that succumbs all peace, right? That's what that is. And I agree. And, you know, and that's what I tell everybody who is new coming out of addiction, right? They talk about, well, you know, I need to do this and I need to do that and I need to fix this and I need to fix that. First and foremost, you need to fix you.

Speaker 00: 19:57

Yeah.

Speaker 01: 19:58

Right. First and foremost, you can't heal. You can't fix any relationship in your past, any relationship in your forward. Nothing until you heal yourself. Right. Until you forgive yourself. You know, I have I have a friend and she's going through a lot of things right now. And, you know, she talked to me this week about it and she said that she thought she had forgiven herself. the people that's in the situation that she's in. And she said, when you were talking about picking the chain up and playing with it, that's what she feels like she's doing or going through right now. But she keeps making this statement. Well, I did this because I want to be a good mom. Or I did this because I want to do... And I think what she really needs to do is... figure out how to forgive herself. Right. And I haven't told her that. And so she'll, she's going to hear this and cry. Uh, and I'm sorry. Um, when she listens to this podcast, but it just hit me sitting here. She needs to forgive herself. She needs to quit worrying about forgiving the people that has hurt her. And she needs to find how, how to forgive herself first. Right. Because you can't, I'm a bad mom. You can't that that's, that's one of those that you have to let go of. Right.

Unknown: 21:19

Um,

Speaker 01: 21:19

For me,

Speaker 00: 21:20

it kept me in victim mode until I truly started forgiving myself. I'm always the victim for a pitiful me. But then when I come out of that, then I can walk in victory, a victor, not a victim. And so it changes your whole mindset.

Speaker 01: 21:37

Right. I agree. And there's steps for forgiveness. There's practical things that you can ask for. There's practical things that you can do. pray for the person, right? Start with just saying their name or even if your whispers, you know, whisper it through your tears, start with asking God to help you forgive them, right? You know, when you pray, praying and saying their name and sometimes saying their name is just as hard, right? But start with that asking for help, right? I guess the first step way out of addiction is realizing you got a problem, right? And the second one is asking for help. So, and it's funny how everything goes back to the steps that we teach people, the things that we do, you know, writing a letter. That's what I did with my daddy. I didn't write the letter, but when he asked me to come and talk with him, I wrote this like five page thing. Right. And, and it had everything that I'd ever wanted to say and was too scared to say. Right. And I was too scared to be honest with the way I felt because I was afraid he wouldn't love me anymore. Right. I was afraid that if I was truly honest about how the things he'd done hurt me, that he wouldn't love me anymore. Right. Because he was always one of those. But I did this for you. And I did that for you. But that's not what I wanted. I just wanted you to be present. And you talk about that with Oren. He don't care. He just wants you to be present. And that's all I wanted. A lot

Speaker 00: 23:29

of times people think that forgiving means that you're weak. You're not weak. Forgiving is actually powerful.

Speaker 01: 23:36

It's so powerful.

Speaker 00: 23:38

You're definitely not weak. It shows so much strength. when you truly forgive a person. You know, there was a situation my dad went through a few years back with a family member that, you know, as a daughter, you know, when somebody hurts your family member or whatever, you know, things happen, you know, you're hurt too. And so there was a lot of unforgiveness and my dad had to, probably it's been, let's see, 10 years, I guess, he had the opportunity to see this person face-to-face as a family member and ask for forgiveness. Even though he felt like he wasn't in the wrong, it was the other person. Dad needed to do that. He told me. It was such a breakthrough for him. It encouraged me, too, because it was like I had to do that to move forward. Right. He said, and when I did, and the person didn't even really accept it, but Dad was so free. He said it was just like... A ton of bricks. You know, this has been a 10-year event.

Speaker 01: 24:44

Right.

Speaker 00: 24:44

You know what

Speaker 01: 24:44

I mean? Well, yeah, and at the end of the day, I think that's why you forgive people, right? It's to get those bricks off. It's to take out another link of the chain, you know, because I think everything that we go through, I think it's one big chain wrapped around. I feel like it's one big chain wrapped around us, and it's link by link, and that's how we do it. But you have to choose forgiveness daily, and you have to set boundaries. Just because you give forgiveness, it doesn't mean that they get access. And that's some of the trauma things. I have family that I haven't seen in years, and it's not that they did anything to me. I just can't be around their lifestyle. I just can't be a part of that lifestyle because... honestly i don't know if i could say no if i went around and they had you know a joint or a line of a line or something i don't know i don't know if i could say no and like i said i've been clean it'll be 23 years in july you know and i don't i don't know i don't know i choose not to put myself in those situations um so that i don't have to make that decision right so um At the end of the day, we just want everyone to know, no matter what they're going through, no matter what's going on, that you're not alone, that the feelings that you have, it's not crazy, right? It's the feelings that you have. Sometimes people make you feel like the feelings that you have are wrong. If that's how you feel, that's how you feel, right? And at the end of the day, it's all that matters is God sees you. He heals you and He redeems you.

Speaker 00: 26:34

Yes, He does. I'm so thankful that we talked on this today because, you know, forgiveness is another thing to keep you free. You know, you think, well, I'm walking in freedom. Are you? You're holding on to some unforgiveness there, you know? So sometimes you think, well, I'll forgive everybody. So I encourage you today to, in your quiet time, to just ask the Lord, Lord, is there somebody in my life That I need to forgive. Because there might be places in your life that you don't even realize that you haven't forgave them. Right. And that might be a stumbling block later on down the road. So I just encourage you in your quiet time to just get your pen and paper and write it down. Right. Because there's somebody in my life that I need to forgive or that I need to ask them to forgive me. Or it might be yourself.

Speaker 01: 27:24

Right. And at the end of the day, that's... what this is all about, right? The reason that we do this podcast, the reason that we are doing this podcast is so that at the end of the day, you can find that freedom. You know, I had someone ask me today or the other day, ask me, why did you start a podcast? And I was like, because God told me to. And it's not really, I mean, that is why we started one. But the grace and the peace of that I have felt the last six or seven years of my life, I want everybody to feel that peace. I want everybody to truly walk in that freedom. I want them to truly find that. We talk a lot about... loss or about an empty hole or trying to fulfill something in our hearts. And at the end of the day, that's everything. That's what we were chasing back in the day. We were trying to fill a void somewhere in our life. And at the end of the day, the only thing that ever filled that void was God. It was Jesus. It was the things that... and I have to be thankful for the things that I went through and for the thing, you know, it's made me who I am today. Um, it's definitely taught me the grace that I have, uh, every day, you know, and I'm not the best at it, right? I'm not the best at giving grace. Um, I have my moments. Uh, we were laughing about it earlier. Uh, when I print this up, when I print an outline up of our, uh, of what we're going to talk about today, uh, the computer automatically puts truth on where I'm supposed to talk and put grace where you're supposed to talk. And everybody was talking about how loud I was and how quiet you were. And I was like, it's because I'm truth and she's grace. That's just how it is, right? God brought us together for a reason. And then at the end of the day, that's where we're at. And I want everyone to take those steps forward to get where they need to be. Yes.

Speaker 00: 29:37

You need to pray us out? Yep. Alright. God, we thank you for your mercy. We ask you that you would teach us to forgive the way that you do. Heal every heart listening right now, losing every chain of bitterness, resentment, and pain, and give us grace for today and strength to forgive again tomorrow. Lord, I surrender the weight of unforgiveness. Help me release what I can't carry. I trust you with the healing in Jesus' name. Amen.

Speaker 01: 30:07

Amen. If this episode stirred something in your heart, share it with someone who might need it. Follow us at Unrelated Sisters Podcast and subscribe for more truth and grace. Until next time, keep your heart safe and your spirit anchored in love. Amen.