Forgiveness Requires Giving Up

Last updated on August 19th, 2025 at 10:24 pm

We’ve all heard about forgiveness—how vital it is, how it’s supposed to set us free. And yet… if it’s so good for us, why does it feel so impossible to actually do?

Part of it is that many of us were never truly taught how to forgive. Older generations told us to “forgive and forget,” yet those same wounds would be dragged out at every holiday dinner or family gathering. The lesson wasn’t forgiveness. It was suppression. And that’s why so many of us are still walking around carrying hurt that should have been released long ago.

The truth is, forgiveness requires us to let go of things we don’t want to part with:

  • our need to be right

  • our anger

  • our judgment of the other person

  • the identity we’ve built around the story we keep retelling

  • and sometimes, even the accountability we don’t want to face for our own role in it.

Queen, I know you’re not a quitter BUT real forgiveness will demand that you release all of that. And until you do, you’ll never taste true freedom. What you’ll have instead is a polished mask: a false sense of being “unbothered,” right up until their name comes up, until a trigger blindsides you, until they make a mistake, until someone tries to love you and you can’t let yourself soften enough to receive it.

Here’s what I need you to remember:

  • Forgiveness is not forgetting.

  • It’s not excusing.

  • It’s not giving someone a free pass.

  • And it’s certainly not forcing reconciliation.

Forgiveness is for you. Reconciliation, if you choose it, is for we. But the only requirement of forgiveness is that you’re willing to let go—for your peace, your softness, and your freedom.

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