How to Forgive Someone Who Isn’t Sorry: A Biblical Guide to Healing
Forgiveness has been one of the hardest, most agonizing, yet deeply transformative parts of my walk with God.
If you were to look at my life just a few years ago, you wouldn’t recognize the woman writing this today. I was bitter. I was hard-hearted. I was completely consumed by the wrongs that had been committed against me.
The people I trusted most in this world—the ones who were supposed to protect me—betrayed me. They crossed boundaries I never in a million years believed they would cross. To make matters worse, total strangers went out of their way to inflict damage on my life.
I didn’t just feel heartbreak. I felt a burning, relentless rage.
I felt confusion, hatred, deep-seated bitterness, and an overwhelming sense of injustice that kept me awake at night scheming for revenge. Letting go didn’t feel natural, and it certainly didn’t feel safe. Forgiving them felt completely impossible.
I remember sitting in the dark asking God how to forgive unforgivable betrayal—how to release a stranger who went out of their way to destroy me, or worse, the people who supposedly loved me and still chose to wreck my soul.
I genuinely thought I never would. And that realization terrified me, because I didn’t know what that darkness was going to push me to do. My thoughts were drifting into dangerous, scary places. I felt like I was losing my grip on my life—and if I’m being real with you, I actually was.
When Human Solutions Fail Your Heart
I tried to fix myself. I spent hours reading every self-help book I could get my hands on. I devoured article after article searching for relief. I searched YouTube videos, listened to podcasts, and scrolled endlessly through Instagram influencers offering quick-fix advice.
Nothing worked. None of it touched the bleeding, shattered parts of my heart. Why do you think that was? Because you cannot fix a spiritual attack with secular strategy.
When everything else failed, I was left with the simplest, most terrifying option: Prayer.
The idea of praying for my enemies made my stomach knot up, and it felt like the deepest type of betrayal. It felt like I was betraying myself.
But the fact of the matter is, God was the only One who healed me. And He was the only One who could. But the pathway He led me down wasn’t easy—He called me to start intentionally praying for the very people who destroyed my life and made me feel like there was no point to anything anymore. He called me to pray for the people who made me think peace was no longer possible for myself.
At first, it felt disgusting. It felt uncomfortable, insincere, and completely unnatural. I didn’t want good things for them. I wanted justice. I wanted them to suffer the way they made me suffer. I wanted them to finally understand what they did to me. I wanted an apology.
I wanted revenge.
In those first few weeks, I couldn’t even form the words. I would collapse on my knees in our spare bedroom floor, choked up by my own sobs, unable to speak. My throat ached and was so tight I felt like I couldn’t breathe. But God is so good! He didn’t need a polished prayer from me. He saw my heart, and He heard what my soul was screaming.
The Shift: From Pure Rage to Supernatural Freedom
I made a choice to keep showing up. Day after day, I surrendered my right to get even. The breakthrough began when I embraced the hardest commandment of praying for your enemies as a Christian—not just asking God to deal with them, but intentionally bringing their names before Him.
And ever so slowly, the impossible started happening. Eventually, I stopped saying, “God, deal with them,” and I started calling them by their actual names: “Lord, I pray they find You. I pray You grow them and heal their brokenness.”
As I kept laying their names at the feet of Jesus, something actually shattered inside of me. My stone-hard bitterness started to melt. I began to see my abusers through God’s eyes—as broken, bound people controlled by darkness—instead of seeing them purely through the lens of my trauma.
My stone-cold heart of stone was replaced with a warm, beating heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26).
Let me be very clear about something: Praying for them did not excuse what they did to me. It didn’t make their sin okay, and it didn’t mean I had to invite them back into my life.
What it DID do was set me free.
It broke the chains binding me to their offense. It forced me to release my suffocating need for control, revenge, and closure. I stopped waiting for an apology that was never coming and trusted God to handle the justice. Over time, God enabled me to forgive people I truly believed I would carry hatred for until the day I died.
The memories didn’t vanish overnight, but the crushing, suffocating weight of them completely lifted.
Exposing the Enemy’s Game Plan
Now, whenever I feel an old offense trying to creep back into my mind, I run straight back to that exact same weapon: prayer.
And I ask myself a critical diagnostic question: Where—or WHO—is this thought coming from?
When you think you’ve completely healed from a past wound, but suddenly, out of nowhere, an old memory surges back up after a year of peace, that is not random. That is a targeted attack from the enemy. Satan knows he can’t steal your salvation, so he tries to hijack your memories. He wants to drag you right back into the courtroom of your past pain so he can keep you controlled, isolated, and bitter.
The second those toxic emotions try to re-attach themselves to my mind, I take a deep breath and pray them away on the spot. I stand up in my authority as a daughter of the King and say: “Satan, get behind me. I am a child of God, and you are NOT welcome in my thoughts. In Jesus’ name, I demand you leave my mind this instant!”
And guess what? He flees every single time.
It’s the simplest way to redirect your thoughts and take back control, but my, does it work!
1 Samuel 2:2 tells us: “There is no one holy like the LORD; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.” When you stand on the Rock, the storms of your past lose their power over your future.
You Don’t Have to Walk Through the Wilderness Alone
If you are reading this right now with a racing heart because every word feels like a mirror to your own pain—I see you.
You might be lying awake at night, just like I was, crying yourself to sleep and wondering how God could ever expect you to forgive the person who shattered your world. You might be exhausted from carrying the invisible backpack of bitterness, rage, and confusion.
You don’t have to figure out how to break these toxic loops by yourself.
I built Within The Temple to walk alongside women who are ready to lay down the heavy weight of betrayal, expose the footholds the enemy has held in their minds, and build unwavering biblical boundaries so they can finally live in peace. Finally let go of the pain so they can feel like themselves again, and to take control of their emotions.
If you are ready to stop letting your past dictate your future, I invite you to take the first brave step today.
👉 LEARN MORE ABOUT 1:1 COACHING SERVICES
If you’re ready now and don’t want to spend another minute waiting, submit an inquiry. After submitting the form, you’ll need to fill out my confidential client intake form once it hits your inbox. I will personally review your story, pray over your situation, and reach out so we can discuss your needs in more detail.
Your story isn’t over, Sister. It’s time to take back your mind.
