Where Love and Hurt Share the Same Table
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There are places in life where love and hurt don't sit on opposite sides of the room. They sit right next to each other, sharing the same story, the same memory, the same heart.
I know this place too well. I've been there more times than I care to count. I've felt that tug between holding on and letting go, between remembering the beautiful moments and facing the ones that left me bruised, confused, and sometimes angry.
Sometimes I sit with my own memories and think, How do I keep both love and hurt in my heart at the same time? And I realize: this is the table where it happens, where loyalty and self-preservation both reach for the same chair. Where my heart feels torn between the softness of what could be and the truth of what actually is.
I'll be honest: sometimes it feels impossible to forgive. To forgive the family members who have hurt me, whether intentionally or not. To forgive when there's no apology, no acknowledgment, no change. I've sat with that weight, carrying it longer than I wanted to admit.
I used to think I just struggled with forgiveness in general. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized it wasn't general at all. It was specific. It had a face, a moment, a pattern.
There were seasons when I thought I had forgiven, and then I'd discover something that had been hidden from me. A conversation that happened without my knowledge. A choice made behind my back to keep the peace, or so I was told. And what hurt most wasn't just the action itself. It was realizing that the person I loved had looked me in the eye and chose silence over honesty. That my boundaries, spoken clearly, had been quietly set aside. That, after everything, they went back. Back to the very place, the very person, the very pain that had broken us all, and I wasn't even told. I found out the way you always do with these things: too late and by accident.
What I've had to wrestle with is this: what do you do when the person who hurt you keeps hurting you, and the world just moves on like nothing happened? No consequences. No apology. No reckoning. I used to think forgiveness required something from them first. A moment of accountability. A change. But I've come to understand, as much as it has cost me, that forgiveness isn't a transaction. You don't wait for them to earn it. You release it because God released you. And because your heart deserves to be free, even if theirs never changes.
There are mornings I wake up with the hurt still lingering, the memories pressing in, and I think: How do I let this go? How do I release the bitterness that keeps me awake? And so I pray. Not just in the morning, but through the day, sometimes in a whisper, sometimes just a breath: I choose to trust you, Lord. I release them to you. It doesn't always lift immediately. But something in the heaviness begins to ease. And slowly, I'm learning to look at the people who have hurt me as simply that: people. Broken, complicated, still figuring it out, just like me. And in those moments, I make a quiet choice to display love anyway. Not because it's easy. Not because they've earned it. But because that is what grace looks like when it lives in you.
I won't pretend that giving grace is simple. This situation is complicated, and it carries more than just hurt. There is anger in here, too. Grief. Confusion. Feelings that don't always sit still or behave. But when I bring all of that to God, the whole tangled mess of it, He helps me uncomplicate it. He doesn't take the feelings away, but He untangles them enough for me to see clearly again. Clearly enough to choose love. Clearly enough to extend grace, even when everything in me wanted to withhold it.
I'm also learning to sit with both the love and the hurt without forcing a resolution. Because the truth is, I may never get the outcome I'm hoping for. The apology may never come. The relationship may never look the way I want it to. And I'm learning to be okay with that. Not in a defeated way. But in a surrendered way. Trusting that God holds what I cannot fix, and that my peace does not have to wait for their change.
It looks like choosing not to rehearse the argument in your head again before bed. It looks like pausing before you respond at a family gathering. It looks like a five-minute prayer on a Tuesday morning when you don't feel like praying at all. Nobody sees those moments. They don't make good stories. But they are the moments that, slowly, change you from the inside out.
I'll admit: there are days when I question myself. When I thought I was healed from these pieces, yet here I am, still in it. Still choosing. Still wondering if I'm doing this right, if I'm healing fast enough, if I'll ever fully get there. And on those days, I bring that doubt to God too. Because he already knows. And He reminds me: I am not failing. I am doing the hard work of healing. I am choosing freedom, step by step. I am honoring truth, my truth, without denying love.
Lysa TerKeurst says forgiveness is a choice and a process. And I'm living proof of that. I'm still in the process. Still choosing, some days more than once. Forgiveness isn't about erasing what happened or excusing the bad actions and behaviors that caused the hurt. It's about learning to trust God with all of it, the anger, the resentment, the longing for fairness, the hunger for justice, and choosing to no longer be held hostage by what cannot change. It's about releasing yourself from the prolonged pain of bitterness so you can breathe again. Walk again. Live in peace again. Not because they deserve it. But because you do.
So, if you're reading this, know I see you. I've sat at this table too. I've wrestled with the tug-of-war inside my heart. I've stared at the memories, wondering if I'd ever find peace. And I'm not on the other side of it yet. I'm still in it, still choosing, still learning to hold both the love and the hurt without letting either one swallow me whole.
And slowly, thread by thread, I'm learning that both things can be true at once:
And you don't have to sit with this alone. I've been here. I'm still here. And if this table feels too heavy to sit at alone, know that someone else has already pulled up a chair, and there is room for you.
Pull up a chair. Take a deep breath. Let your heart unfold. Let God meet you there.
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