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  • 4/29/2025
🔥 "Stuck between ‘I should forgive’ and ‘I CAN’T’? This isn’t a sugar-coated sermon—it’s a raw, grace-filled battle plan for when forgiveness feels impossible. 💔 In this Candid Conversation, we tackle:**
✅ The ‘How’ When It Hurts: Practical, Bible-backed steps to release bitterness without denying your pain.
✅ Jesus’ Boundary Blueprint: Forgiving ≠ forgetting. How to protect your heart while obeying God. 🛡️
✅ Freedom Stories: Real women who walked this fire and emerged unshackled. ✨

📖 Key Truth: “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” — Matthew 6:14

🌟 This is for you if:

You’re tired of rehearsing the hurt.

You want to obey God but fear forgiveness means “letting them win.”

You crave peace more than revenge.

👉 Hit ‘Subscribe’ 🔔 and join a sisterhood learning to forgive like Jesus—radically, relentlessly, and free.


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Learning
Transcript
00:00Well, here we are again. Take two. Let's try this again. We'll see someone said that they could not hear us. So please let us know if you can hear us or cannot hear us. Here we go. Yeah, I need to talk louder. I have a soft voice. We are talking today as well and I my husband about forgiveness and how to forgive when it's hard because as you know, it's not always easy to forgive those who have hurt us.
00:30So, it seems like everyone is talking about forgiveness nowadays. And what I've learned is it has to be more than just a good quote that's going around on social media or even quoting a scripture. But you have to be intentional about forgiving the person who hurt you.
00:49So, I'm going to ask a few questions here. Are you struggling with letting something go? Have you truly forgiven the person who wrecked your world and who played with your emotions? Have you been able to say, I forgive so and so for telling lies about me or for spreading rumors about me?
01:12I forgive the person who molested me or who abused me? And then this last question, let's make it more personal. I forgive the person and you finish the sentence out. Where are you in all of this? Because as we know, you could have been hurt five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, six months ago, a year ago.
01:34And you may still be holding on to that grudge and not letting go. And what I've learned, we talked about this many times is, and because I said it myself is, oh, I'm over him. I'm over that.
01:49That was a year ago. That was five years ago. I'm over that mess. And then we continue to talk about it. And it's all negative. But we continue to talk about the person who wrecked our world. And we act like we're fine. But if you truly have forgiven and truly are over it, it's not going to always be that deep wound. It's not going to feel like it's cutting you every time this subject comes up. You will truly move on. Now, it is a process. It's definitely a process. Most of the time.
02:18You have to be intentional about it. You have to be intentional about it. So we wanted to talk a little bit about this. And as I'll just, you know, I'll just say most of you who follow me on Unveiled Ministries know that I did deal with abuse and that it was a process for me.
02:36And I tell my story often so other women can know that they're not alone in letting go. Because it's very easy to say, let go and let God. How many of us have heard that statement? Sometimes I just want to say, you know what, it's not that easy.
02:52Yeah, and then when we let go, we pick it back up. Because the wound is so deep, it hurts so bad. So I will just tell you, I'm going to be real open right here for a moment. When I left the abuse, and I moved out of it, physically, mentally, emotionally, I was still there even four or five years later.
03:14And I remember saying myself, I just hope he rots in hell. Or I hope he deserves everything I went through. I hope he feels the pain that he put on me, the insecurities that he put in me, everything he did to me.
03:30And he messed me up, you know, and all this stuff. I was very angry. And I had not forgiven. But yet I acted like I had moved on. And that is a sign right there. That's a red flag right there. If you are still wishing that that person pays for what they did to you, that's a sure sign that there's something still deep inside that you have not let go.
03:51And it was a process for me. And finally, the Lord was able to gently take it out of me. But it wasn't until about five years later, till I finally just surrendered. And I cried and wept. And it was painful for me. And then God was able to do heart surgery on me. And he was able to heal me.
04:13He cannot heal me of what I went through if I won't acknowledge what the person did to me. I won't say, I forgive that person. God, whatever, you know what he deserves. You know what she deserves. I put it in your hands. I'm no longer going to try to seek revenge.
04:31And yes, it's so much easier said than done. But I want to go ahead and bring my husband in. And he's going to bring some tools out of his toolbox and discuss forgiveness and unforgiveness and maybe even share a personal story. And then we will come back together and talk more about it.
04:48So, so forgiveness is just powerful. Most of us don't understand the power of forgiveness until we really get back into the word because we've all been hurt. We've all been through things that have been very hurtful, whether it was abuse, physical, emotional, especially from the from from a man's perspective.
05:18It's a little difference. I'm taking this from my own perspective. My wife has her story. I have my story. And my story goes back to the time I was a kid until today.
05:31So and then how does that manifest and then forgiveness just in general in other things that we don't even think that there's things in our life that's forgiveness.
05:39So I'm going to talk about and my wife has kind of talked about the physical abuse, the emotional abuse. But I'm going to talk about just in general in life.
05:49There are things that we keep bottled up because we didn't forgive that someone said something or church hurts.
05:56That is a huge thing of one thing that was in my life as well as a preacher's kid was church hurts.
06:04You were wronged. And so you blamed God. You blamed the minister. You blamed your family.
06:10And that impacted your life to where you saw God as not who he truly was.
06:18And then you didn't forgive others because they wronged you.
06:21You didn't forgive others because they said things about you.
06:24They made fun of you. They talked about you.
06:27And I remember going through lots of those things through bullying.
06:30I was extremely bullied in school.
06:32Not just was I abused, but I was also bullied my entire life until I was 17 or 18.
06:38But there was a lot of deep things. And so there was triggers.
06:41And we talked about triggers.
06:43But then forgiveness comes in.
06:45And so what does the Bible say about forgiveness?
06:47And we're going through some things right now.
06:49The country is going through things.
06:50The world is going through things.
06:52More notably, there's racism that is happening that people aren't admitting to.
06:58And a lot of that is deep rooted into cultures, into things that we've got to forgive our own thing.
07:07But it's all rooted in pride.
07:10Forgiveness is rooted in pride.
07:14And so let's kind of talk through that.
07:16Because we can't forgive because pride tells us they were wrong.
07:22That's good.
07:23And we were right.
07:24Yeah.
07:26And I was violated.
07:28Yeah.
07:28And the violator deserves to suffer.
07:31Right.
07:31So Jesus knew what unforgiveness does to the heart.
07:37And so, and the mind.
07:39And it's why he said in Luke chapter 6, verse 32 through 36.
07:46And this is the New International Version.
07:48And I'm going back to the Bible because everything that we're doing is in the Bible.
07:52And we just go back to the Word because the Word is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
07:57So if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?
08:03Even sinners love those who love them.
08:06And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you?
08:13Even sinners do that.
08:15And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you?
08:21Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be repaid in full.
08:25But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.
08:33Then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
08:42Be merciful just as your Father is merciful.
08:46C.S. Lewis has a phenomenal quote, folks.
08:48To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.
08:59Let me say that again.
09:01To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in us.
09:10Right, right.
09:11That's good.
09:12That's good.
09:13That's deep.
09:14There's some more scriptures, and I'm just quoting the scriptures because the scripture has been doing surgery on me, on Stephanie, for the last two months.
09:26I mean, literally, folks, it has done so much surgery on us that here's another one, Matthew 18, 21 through 22.
09:36Then Peter came to Jesus and said, Lord, how many times may my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?
09:45Up to seven times?
09:47And Jesus said it to him, I tell you, not seven times, but seven times seven.
09:57Leviticus 19, 17 through 18.
10:00I'm just going to quote scriptures here, folks.
10:02Let it speak to us.
10:03Let it saturate our being.
10:04Do not bear a grudge against others, but settle your differences with them, so that you will not commit a sin because of them.
10:15Do not take revenge on others or continue to hate them, but love your neighbors as you love yourself.
10:24I am the Lord.
10:26Right, right.
10:27Mark 11, 25.
10:28And when you stand and pray, forgive anything you may have against anyone, so that your Father in heaven will forgive the wrongs you have done.
10:41Ephesians 4, 26 and 27, and then I want to kind of talk about this scripture, because this scripture right here, folks, is misquoted a lot and misunderstood.
10:53Be angry, yet do not sin.
10:56Do not let the sun set, folks, while you are still angry, and do not give the devil an opportunity to work.
11:03Look, it's okay to be angry.
11:06It's okay to be mad at the person who abused you, who bullied you.
11:11I was angry.
11:12But when my anger turned to sin, because I began to hate them.
11:18Right.
11:18I hated them for what they did to me.
11:20And that was when sin started to get in, and I gave the devil his opportunity.
11:28And he began to work.
11:29Right.
11:30And he began to put bitterness in me.
11:33He began to get, so I became angry.
11:34And as we talked about triggers, and that's when I had to go to a lot of counseling, and then I had to get back to God.
11:38And I had to, there was a lot of pain in my life.
11:42But it was because I got angry, and then I began to sin, because I began to have emotions, and bitterness, and hate towards people.
11:52And that is when we had to be raw before God.
11:56And that took me on a journey.
11:57And there was a lot of things that happened in my life, but it was because of me.
12:01It was because I didn't understand the word.
12:03I didn't understand what the scriptures were telling me, because I didn't get into them.
12:07I quoted them.
12:08I knew them.
12:09I read the word, but reading the word and understanding the word are two different things, because you've got to rightly divide.
12:17You've got to rightly divide.
12:18And I think also that when we don't forgive, I know from my experience, from your experience, it will literally consume your life.
12:27Oh, it consumes you.
12:27It consumes you.
12:29And you turn into, most people who do not forgive turn bitter.
12:34And you can always tell, I've been there before, so I can always tell when a person has become bitter, and they say they're over it.
12:43But everything that comes out of their mouth is poison.
12:45It's toxic.
12:46It's contaminated.
12:48And since I've been there, I know exactly what's going on, and my heart just breaks for people.
12:53And as you look all around us in this world, there's a lot of unforgiveness, there's a lot of pride, there's a lot of hate.
13:01But let's talk about that.
13:03Forgiveness does not mean that you allow someone to walk all over you.
13:08Forgiveness does not give the license to be a doormat.
13:11No, no, no.
13:11This is where boundaries come in place.
13:14And remember, Jesus set lots of boundaries.
13:17Christ, the perfect human being, he forgave us, died for us.
13:23He who knew no sin died for us, but he also set boundaries.
13:27Yes.
13:27Remember that.
13:28So boundaries are healthy.
13:31If you're in marriages, if you're in relationships, if you're in ministries, careers, whatever it is,
13:40you need, sometimes you've got to set boundaries to protect you.
13:44Yes.
13:44If you're going through abuse right now, boundaries are extremely important.
13:49You can forgive.
13:50I forgave my abuser, but never went back around them.
13:53Never went to them, nothing.
13:54It wasn't safe at that point in time.
13:57Absolutely not.
13:57So there is also a safe house that you've got to be in.
14:01And so remember, if you're going through some type of abuse, there's some things that, number one, is you need to get help for certain things,
14:08especially if it's physical abuse, you need to get out ASAP and get help.
14:13And there's lots of resources to get you that help.
14:16If you're in a marriage where you're being emotionally abused, now's the time to start working through counseling one-on-one for you.
14:23Don't think you're going to go and fix your spouse.
14:26You can't fix that.
14:27But what you can do is you can fix you.
14:29You can fix me on how do I handle that?
14:32How do I set a boundary?
14:34And if they violate that boundary, what do I do?
14:36What's my next step when they violate that boundary?
14:39And so those are the things that Jesus will begin to able to heal you into your heart so you can get into the word and he'll begin to instruct you on where those boundaries are.
14:49That doesn't mean I can love, we can love, and Christ loves us.
14:54But remember, he never forces you to come to live for him.
14:58He gives you choices.
15:00And he says, whenever you want me, I am here.
15:03And I am here and I'm going to wrap you in my arms.
15:06But he's never going to pursue you to wrap you in your arms.
15:09So think about the Father's love towards you and think about what you've got to do when I have forgiveness and I've got to forgive.
15:17But what if the person on the receiving end, and especially if you're in a marriage or something like that.
15:22And we strongly encourage you to go get counseling if you're in things like that as well.
15:28Definitely.
15:28And I will tell you, the only other thing with children, when you are forgiving, there's lots of things.
15:38And this is probably another story that we give.
15:40And we've shared this at Unveiled and one of our workshops as well.
15:45But with children, some of us have been there.
15:49Yes.
15:49I've been there.
15:50Right.
15:51I'm still there.
15:52Right.
15:52And that's another thing that how do you do that and love.
15:55And I remember an individual that I let speak into me that speaks into the prophetic.
16:01Sometimes you have to love from the porch.
16:05That's where forgiveness is.
16:06You've got to love from the porch.
16:08And if you've got children that you're trying to go through, and I'm seeing some of you kind of talk through that, and how do we do that, and how do you forgive, let people work their journey and love them.
16:20Right.
16:20Christ requires us to love.
16:23There is a scripture that I'm going to give you today here that God gave me this morning in my study as I'm working through justice, mercy.
16:32I'm going to take over.
16:35I just lost my spot here.
16:37Well, no, I was just going to give the scripture, Matthew 6, 14 through 15, where this really spoke to me when I was struggling with forgiving my abuser way back in 2008, 2009.
16:51It says, for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
16:58But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
17:03And I remember reading that, and I had heard it all my life.
17:05I'm a preacher's kid.
17:07But it hit me like a ton of bricks.
17:10I was so bitter and angry and full of unforgiveness and wanted this person to pay for what he did to me.
17:17But when I read that, it hit me, and I just started weeping, and I said, God, help me.
17:22I don't want to forgive this person.
17:25My whole life turned upside down because of what happened.
17:28I moved from my safe place and went to D.C., got an apology.
17:32I don't know what's going on there.
17:33But it really spoke to me that it's so important for us to forgive so God can forgive us and heal us.
17:42Because he can't fully make us whole and heal us if we will not acknowledge that we have unforgiveness in us, that we need to give it to him.
17:51And it is hard.
17:52I cancel women a lot.
17:54I get emails a lot from people, even some men, and they've been through a lot of deep stuff in the pit.
18:02And how do I forgive?
18:03My mom, Joy Haney, has a book called, it's an older book, but it's incredible.
18:07It's thin, called How to Forgive When It's Hard to Forget.
18:11It's a great book if you're looking for something to help you there.
18:14And you can go ahead.
18:15So the scripture that I'm looking for is, to forgive, you've got to practice it.
18:25It doesn't come.
18:27A lot of people say, just let it go.
18:28You've got to let it go.
18:30There's been lots of people that have been talking about, I just can't let it go.
18:32It consumes my mind.
18:33So we've been talking about it that you've got to begin to speak life into it then.
18:37Even when you don't feel it, even when I don't feel like I'm forgiven, I begin to speak it.
18:42And I begin to say, okay, God, I'm going to start quoting the scriptures.
18:46I can't stand this person.
18:47Or I'm going to have a hard time.
18:49I know it's going to elicit an emotion.
18:50I'm asking you to give me peace in the situation.
18:53Clear my mind.
18:54Control my tongue.
18:55Control my tongue, Lord, because that is important.
18:58But it says, Hebrews 12, 15 says,
19:01See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God.
19:07And that no bitter root grows up and causes you trouble.
19:12Or many of you will become defiled.
19:15Ephesians 4, 31.
19:17Get rid of your bitterness, hot tempers, anger, loud quarreling, cursing, and hatred.
19:24Romans 12, 2.
19:25This is what I just start speaking.
19:26I just start speaking scripture, folks.
19:28When I'm feeling it in my mind.
19:30When my mind takes over because I want to get revenge.
19:33Somebody did me bad.
19:34So I just start speaking scripture.
19:36Because remember the word says it's sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing
19:41asunder of soul and spirit, joints of the heart, discerner of the thoughts of the heart.
19:44So use your word to fight this because this is just a fight when you don't want to do that.
19:49Just start speaking the scripture.
19:50Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
19:55That by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable.
20:00Matthew 6, 14, 15.
20:02My wife just quoted that.
20:041 John 4, 20, 21.
20:08If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar.
20:14For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love a God whom he has not forgiven.
20:20And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother.
20:25So it's love.
20:26Love is the power that trumps unforgiveness.
20:32Another thing I want to say is, because I know many, I can't see what everyone's saying.
20:39I apologize.
20:40But I know that this is another issue.
20:42I've had women email me.
20:43We've experienced this.
20:45When people have done you wrong and you want to shout at the mountaintop what's going on.
20:51Tell everybody.
20:52You want to post about it.
20:53Do those little, what's those messages?
20:56You want to get your own revenge.
20:56Yeah, you want to get your own revenge.
20:58You have to remember, and I have seen my parents walk this many times.
21:03And I could just cry watching them walk and continue.
21:07And they would say, God is going to take care of it.
21:10And Luke 8, 17 says, for nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.
21:21No matter what's going on in the dark.
21:23And people may not see how those people have wronged you.
21:26One day, God will expose it, or he will fix the other person's heart, and they will make things right.
21:34But you cannot fix the other person.
21:37And I will tell another quick story here because I feel compelled to tell you.
21:41My parents, a long time ago, went through a very difficult trial in their life in ministry.
21:48And they told us, remember, babe, we were newly married, and we were sitting on the couch at their house.
21:54And they began to tell us a story, and it spoke volumes to me.
21:56They would say, nothing is worth missing heaven over.
21:58But what they did was, they had been hurt so badly that they went to Carmel, California, and they were on the beach, and they took five stones.
22:10And because it was close friends who had betrayed them and put knives in their hearts and broke them.
22:19They took those five stones, and they said it was J-E-S-U-S.
22:23But they buried each one, and they would name off the situations that they were in, going through at that time.
22:29And they buried it in the sand, and they said, Jesus, we give this to you.
22:33We will not talk about it anymore.
22:36And five stones they buried, and they never, ever discussed it anymore.
22:40And since that happened, God took care of it.
22:44God did something way bigger than they even expected or wanted him to.
22:49And they just kept quiet.
22:50And they kept just...
22:51In his timing.
22:52In his timing.
22:52Stopped talking about it.
22:53Yes.
22:54And it was the same journey.
22:55There's something about sometimes you have to do a journey.
23:01And that was what I had to do.
23:04When all of these hurts, and I actually went and drove back to the place where it started.
23:12Yes.
23:13And released it.
23:15Yes.
23:15And just the very act of doing that, release, I never thought about it again.
23:21I became a new...
23:22I remember people telling me, something's happened to you over the last five or six...
23:27I don't see that same...
23:29You know what?
23:29It was the very action.
23:31And it triggered when your mom and dad...
23:35Because it was 10 years, 11 years ago, right before your dad.
23:37It was a year, maybe two years before your dad died.
23:40Yes, we're all on dates, but yeah.
23:41Whatever our dates, our times are.
23:42But it was, the act of it was, it triggered in me saying, God, that is what you want me
23:49to do.
23:49You want me to do that act of releasing that unforgiveness.
23:56I'm releasing it to you.
23:58Yes.
23:58It's gone.
24:00It's gone.
24:01It's gone.
24:01So I can love.
24:02So I can love like he loves.
24:05That's right.
24:06With all this hate we got going on in this world.
24:08We got to love as a church.
24:10The church has got to love.
24:12Just like Jesus loves his bride.
24:14We got to love.
24:15We got to get back to love.
24:17And we all hold these grudges.
24:19We want revenge.
24:21And we want this.
24:21We want that.
24:22And God, the greatest thing is love.
24:23We don't love like he does.
24:26I can tell you many people probably would not be able to die on a cross like Christ did
24:30for us.
24:31Who knew no sin and he died for us.
24:34We can't.
24:35But yet we get upset because somebody said something to us.
24:38I don't get this.
24:41We got to love church.
24:43We got to love.
24:44This pandemic has revealed in people and in people that I've revered and their true self
24:55has come out.
24:56And I believe God has taken us back to the word to say, you've got your eyes focused on
25:01this.
25:02And I've wanted it focused here.
25:04And men, this has all been predicated in the word, what's going on here.
25:09You've got to focus here.
25:10And you've got to become more of, it's got to be more about me and less about you.
25:15And we have got to love church.
25:17It is not some namsy, pansy.
25:19Don't listen to that rhetoric out there that God is a hard God.
25:23He is not hard.
25:24The greatest of these is love, he says.
25:26God loves, he loves right now.
25:29He wants the best for his children.
25:32Every single child out there, we're all his children.
25:36I don't care what political affiliation you are.
25:38I don't care what color you are, what race you are.
25:41It doesn't matter.
25:42We are his children.
25:43He made each one of us unique in his own image.
25:48We've got to love people.
25:49We have a responsibility one day.
25:51God is going to, we're going to stand before him.
25:53So we've got to forgive because if we can't love, we've got something inside of us.
25:58It's pride.
25:59It's unforgiveness.
26:00Get it out.
26:01Do, take this time right now to get into the word.
26:04Let the word speak to you.
26:05Cleanse us out.
26:07Psalm 139.
26:07Do surgery on us.
26:08Search me, oh Lord.
26:09Search me, Father.
26:10Psalm 139, 23 through 24, I believe.
26:13Search me.
26:13Search my heart, oh Lord.
26:14Yeah.
26:15Search me, God.
26:16Search me, God.
26:17So as you can see through this quarantine, God's really been dealing with us about love.
26:23Yeah.
26:23About the word and getting all this junk, this unclean stuff out of us that's so easy to hide.
26:30Yeah.
26:31Because if you look, the part of things okay.
26:33When there's junk inside you, there's all kinds of stuff we can hide.
26:37Hidden sins, hidden agendas, hidden motives.
26:40The Bible calls it empty sepulcher.
26:42You're rotten inside.
26:44You stink.
26:45You stink in his nostrils.
26:46You might look good, but you stink because you're empty inside.
26:50Help us, Lord.
26:51Let's get into the word, folks.
26:52We've got to get into the word.
26:53Apply it.
26:54And it speaks and it's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our hearts.
26:59Right.
26:59Right.
27:00So remember, what we speak, who we are, comes out in crisis.
27:03When you're squeezed, what comes out?
27:06That's right.
27:06Whatever's in you begins to come out.
27:08The good, the bad, and the ugly start coming out.
27:12Search us, Lord.
27:13Search us, Father.
27:14Amen.
27:15Amen.
27:16Amen.
27:17Well, we love y'all.
27:18We love you.
27:19We hope we've helped some of you.
27:21Forgiveness.
27:22It's so important.
27:23And it's important if you're going to make it to the pearly gates, as our parents used
27:28to say, we must forgive those who have heard us.
27:31Yeah.
27:31And we're going to leave you with this.
27:34Numbers 6, 23 through 25, folks.
27:38Can't say it more.
27:39Get this in your spirit.
27:40Speak to it.
27:40Remember, pursue peace.
27:59That means you've got to actively pursue it.
28:01It's our mouth.
28:02It's our talk.
28:03It's our walk.
28:04Pursue peace.
28:06Everything.
28:07Have a good day, folks.
28:08We love y'all.
28:09God bless you.
28:10God bless you.

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