Wifey Wednesdays

Hello and welcome to Wifey Wednesdays, a podcast for women who are seeking to be the best wives they can be. I’m your host, Emily Hatfield, and this is the show where the plan is always to do things God’s way, especially our marriages.

On today’s episode we are talking about something that is extremely difficult — not in theory, not in understanding, but in practice. How do we forgive?

Every single one of us is going to have to forgive a ton of people in our lives. Starting as small children, you’re going to have to learn to forgive….your parents, siblings, friends…forgiveness is something needed early and often because we are surrounded by imperfect people.

Within marriage, this is a difficult concept for a host of reasons, but here’s the biggest one, at least for me. My husband is the closest person on earth to me. Emotionally, mentally, physically, financially….we share so many things. He knows me better than anyone. He has more access to me than anyone. He has access to all of me, and he’s the only one! So something inevitably happens within a marriage that requires forgiveness, how do we do it? How can we get over things that shake us and hurt us to our core?

Obviously there are varying degrees of things that a spouse can do that require forgiveness. There are small things that come up - momentary irritations or snap judgments that were saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. There are lapses in judgment that lead to hurt that wasn’t intended but happened anyway. And then there are deeper things. Intentional hurt. Using words that you know will cut right to the heart. Using information only you have access to with your spouse that hurts them. Lying. Deceiving. Rejecting. Withholding. These things cut deeply. How can we forgive?

Scripture has a lot to say about forgiveness, but perhaps there is no greater lesson than when Jesus says - Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put in your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.

That last phrase - that’s the key. With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.

Apply that to forgiveness.

First, think about yourself. Don’t use this episode as a shovel to dig up all the past hurts you’ve experienced from your spouse. Instead, think about yourself and the things you have done against God. How much forgiveness have you needed? I think about Peter’s question — how many times must I forgive? And Jesus says 70 times 7…obviously not giving a number at which you don’t have to forgive, but saying — whew, that’s a lot…and even so, keep on forgiving. Well seventy times seven doesn’t even scratch the surface of my need for forgiveness from God. And so, when I think about the fact that whatever kind of forgiveness measuring spoon I’m using is the same one that’s going to be applied to me….well turns out I need gallon buckets instead of teaspoons. I want to be willing and ready, always, to forgive - because I am always in need of God’s forgiveness.

Yes, when our spouse’s sin against us it hurts deeply. When forgiveness is required, it’s a sacrifice on our part to give it. But it is a sacrifice we are more than willing to give because of the sacrifice that was given to forgive our sins.

We must, as Christians, always choose forgiveness. We must continually be working toward forgiveness. We cannot harbor negative feelings. We cannot let them just keep bubbling under the surface until we explode. When something needs addressed, we talk about it because we want forgiveness to happen. And forgiveness doesn’t happen when you refuse to talk about it. Acting like something never happened isn’t forgiveness. Not telling someone that they have wronged you or sinned against you, that’s not kindness - that’s dangerous. Instead, we talk to our spouse’s when they’ve hurt us. We let them know if they have sinned against us. We talk through things because, if you’ve got something against someone, your job as a Christian is to talk about it and work it out. How much more important is that within a marriage than it is even within the church — and it’s of utmost importance there!

So we forgive. But what about forgetting?

It’s the phrase, right? forgive and forget. The only problem is, I don’t choose the things I remember. I wish that there were things I could forget about my past and about life in general. There are things I wish my mind didn’t relive. There are things I wish I could just put in an inaccessible place in the past and never retrieve it from my mind again. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. My mind remembers things on its own a lot of the time. A song plays, a place is visited, someone uses a certain phrase or does something that makes me feel a certain way and….there I am, right back in a memory.

Not being able to forget something doesn’t mean that you carry resentment or bitterness toward your spouse — at least, it doesn’t have to. It shouldn’t mean that. It can, for sure. If you are choosing to bring up past arguments and choosing to throw things in their face and choosing to keep making them feel bad about things you’ve supposedly forgiven them for…that’s where resentment and bitterness come in. But just because you remember past hurts doesn’t automatically mean you haven’t forgiven. It just means you’ve been given an opportunity to choose forgiveness again.

Every time I remember a past hurt that has been repented of, that I have forgiven for…when I remember those things, it still hurts me. And in the moment I remember I have the opportunity to choose forgiveness again. I choose not to hold on to that hurt — to not let it affect me in this moment or this argument or this new situation. I choose to act lovingly and with kindness and compassion. I choose to believe the best, even if the situation seems familiar. I cannot always control what is remembered, but I can choose to always forgive.

I am grateful God chooses to remember our sins no more. I wish I were capable of that! I wish I were able to put past things in the past and never bring them up in my mind again. If you’ve figured that out, please let me know how. But I don’t know how — so instead, I get to choose forgiveness over and over again.

We have to do this with a lot of things, not just within our marriages. Childhood trauma, yeah that’s probably gonna take forgiving and forgiving again and again. Deep wounds caused by a friend or church member — yeah, probably gonna require forgiveness and then forgiveness again. This process of forgiving, it’s going to be something between me and God that I am continually in the process of doing. I am not always bringing it up to the offender, telling them - well, I remembered this and I’m choosing to forgive…AGAIN. Instead, it’s me remembering and then casting on God. I remember and then I tell God about it — I ask Him to help me move past, keep forgiving, keep acting in a way that is like Jesus. Some days I will do that well, and other days I will end up being the one who needs forgiveness. Thankfully, as husbands and wives who are intent on following Jesus, we’re never going to reach our limit of forgiveness. We’re going to spend our entire marriage forgiving and forgiving again.

Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

AS God in Christ forgave you….well, how was that?

God doesn’t forgive begrudgingly. God isn’t irritated by having to forgive. He doesn’t forgive sometimes, but other times refuse. He doesn’t make us beg. He doesn’t make us grovel. He doesn’t put us on probation when we come to Him. He doesn’t even hold over our heads the cost that this forgiveness was to Him….and if anyone should, He should! The cost was incredibly great and incredibly precious. But, God in Christ forgave me….so I will do the same for my husband. I will choose kindness. I will choose to remain tenderhearted. I will forgive. Will I forget? Probably not, because I’m human. But I will keep on choosing forgiveness, because God is continually choosing forgiveness with me.

Sometimes, I have to remind myself that my marriage is first and foremost about me and God. I am the wife I am because of who Christ has made me. It isn’t about who my husband is. It isn’t about what he does or doesn’t do. It isn’t about how he treats me. It is about Christ. How has Christ treated me? to what has He called me? What does He ask of me in this marriage? Then I will do it. Submission, ok. Respect, ok. Forgiveness, ok. Will I do any of these things perfectly? No. But will I be equipped by the Spirit for the work that I am called to do — absolutely. And the Spirit will bear fruit that will help me within my marriage. Love and kindness will help me as I seek to respect my husband and submit to him. Peace and Patience and Self-control and goodness will help me choose forgiveness time and time again. As the Spirit is working in my heart and life, so my marriage will become what God intended it to be.

I’m just one side of the marriage. But thankfully, it’s not just split into two parts. God’s part in our marriage is the most important part, and He is constantly seeking to help us as we surrender our marriage to Him. I have never forgiven and then been mad that I did. I have never chosen submission or respect and then been mad that I did. Things haven’t gone the way I wanted, sure, but I haven’t ever been upset that I chose God’s way instead of my own. Through each up and down, God’s way has always been the best way. And His promise to One Day make all of the hard and ugly and bad things go away….that makes choosing forgiveness an every day thing. That makes choosing submission an every day thing. Not because it is always easy, but because God’s ways are always worth it.

I hope that today, you will choose forgiveness, even if you can’t forget your hurt or a certain scenario or whatever else. I hope that you will choose forgiveness because Christ did. And if you want forgiveness, and I know you need forgiveness, then you’ll need to keep extending it. May God help us to have the depth of soul to keep on forgiving, even when it’s hard, even and especially when we can’t forget. And may He bless us when we choose His paths over the ones that are easiest or feel best in the moment.

Thanks so much for being with me for another episode of Wifey Wednesdays. I hope that you will join me next time as we continue our very marriage focused final season of this podcast. I appreciate you being with me, and until next time remember - love God, love your husband.