Is it proper for Christians to say, “I can forgive but cannot forget”?
Joey says
Dear Wondering,
It depends on what the person means when (s)he says, “I can forgive but cannot forget.” Forgiveness is a biblical injunction for the Christian disciple: it brings healing to our souls and to the relationship with the one who offended us. It makes us the channel for God’s grace and brings us into a deeper experience of God’s grace. When we choose to forgive, we reflect Christ (who prayed even as he hung on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”) and draw closer to him.
However, the Bible does not say anything about forgetting what happened. In Isaiah 43:25, when God says he will “remember your sins no more”, it is an expression of forgiveness, not divine amnesia: God is choosing not to count Israel’s sins against them. Humanly speaking, it can be hard to forget past incidents. The more traumatic the incident, the stronger the emotions evoked at the time, the more ingrained it is in one’s memory. A genuine inability to forget is not necessarily wrong. To give an analogy, forgiving but not forgetting is like having a physical scar: it may remind you of the incident that caused it, but it has healed and there is no more pain.
But incomplete forgiveness (we have forgiven but not totally) can also lead to an inability to forget. When someone says that they “cannot forget”, there are two helpful questions they can ask themselves to help discern whether there is lingering unforgiveness. First, are they choosing to remember it? Are they choosing to actively recall it? Do they rehash it in their minds or verbally to others with the effect that it becomes more ingrained in their memory? Do they keep thinking about it and get increasingly riled up? If the answer to any of these is “yes”, then forgiveness is not complete. Second, what are the emotions surrounding the memory? A sign that they have healed from the incident and forgiven the perpetrator is when they can look back on the memory with peace. If recollection evokes negative emotions (e.g. fear, anger or grief), it is a sign that there needs to be more healing and/or forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a journey: someone who has forgiven in the past may need to forgive at a deeper level at another time. It doesn’t mean that the past forgiveness was not genuine or not real: it just means that forgiveness has levels. For those who are still on the journey, it is important to hold oneself accountable to striving towards forgiveness while still being kind to oneself and giving oneself time to get there. Forgiveness for grievous offences takes time. It is also something we do in response to God and in cooperation with God’s grace: it is both a decision of our personal will, and a gift of God. It is important that the forgiver leans on God’s grace to receive the healing, strength and power they need to arrive at complete forgiveness.
