Forgiveness Doesn’t Always Look the Same

We can't assume forgiveness and reconciliation will always be intertwined.

What does it look like to forgive those who keep hurting us? Often in the church, forgiveness has been wielded as a weapon against those who have been harmed, a way to test their own faith amid suffering. Have you truly forgiven? Are you harbouring resentment or bitterness? Are you forgiving as Christ has forgiven you?

We have a picture of what forgiveness should look like, a clean box to place every situation inside of. The problem is that not every situation fits in this box, and forgiveness can look very different in each relationship.

Leo Tolstoy begins his novel Anna Karenina by saying, “Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” and that’s what this novel seeks to unravel. Two of these families are Anna Karenina and her husband Karenin, and the other is Dolly and Oblonsky. Each is broken by affairs; the beautiful and seemingly viceless Anna is unfaithful to her husband with a man named Vronsky, and Dolly’s husband Oblonsky regularly pursues relationships with other women. 

Both Karenin and Dolly have become aware of their partner’s unfaithfulness, and Tolstoy brings both these hurting spouses together at a dinner party. Dolly, despite the years of unfaithfulness she has experienced from her husband, has chosen to stay for her children’s sake and her own self-preservation (because a divorced woman did not fare well in that time period in Russia). Karenin, however, had at that moment chosen divorce.

Dolly pleads with him to not divorce Anna. She says, “Wait a little; I will tell you about myself. I was married, and my husband deceived me; in anger and jealousy, I would have thrown up everything, I would myself . . . But I came to myself again; and who did it? Anna saved me. And here I am living on. The children are growing up, my husband has come back to his family, and feels his fault, is growing purer, better, and I live on . . . I have forgiven it, and you ought to forgive!” 

What makes these words from Dolly all the more painful is that just moments ago while they were all conversing together at the party, her husband made a remark that alluded to a woman he was seeing, and Dolly caught that reference. Her husband has not changed, and Dolly is still living with a broken heart in this marriage. Anna has not changed either; she has told Karenin that she does not love him but hates him and only loves Vronsky. She has not stopped seeing Vronsky and has even had him in her house against the wishes of her husband. 

At this point in the novel, Karenin is filled with anger towards Anna. He wants to see her ruined and unhappy in every way possible. I know that anger; my ex-husband did not commit adultery, but he harmed me in many other ways that brewed such a rage in me that I wanted to see him utterly destroyed. But that bitterness ate me alive. Our hearts know that it’s wrong to seek to hurt those who have hurt us. But that doesn’t mean showing forgiveness and mercy requires restoring someone who continues to hurt us without any intention to stop.

The Difference Between Forgiveness and Restoration

The beauty of restoration is trampled in the muck when it is given to those who have no intention to stop hurting us. But restoration and forgiveness are not always intertwined; we can forgive without restoration or reconciliation. Christian counselor Brad Hambrick writes in his book Making Sense of Forgiveness, “Forgiveness means a loan of trust was given, which allowed us to be hurt. Whether we choose to extend another loan after canceling the debt is a matter of trust, not forgiveness.”¹

Restoring a relationship with someone who harms you over and over again without true sorrow or attempting to stop their behaviour isn’t reconciliation but a closing of our eyes to their wrongdoing. We are excusing their bad behaviour and allowing them to continue hurting us in the name of grace. Meanwhile, those who abuse and manipulate thrive on this kind of “forgiveness”; they know how to say the right words and conduct the right actions to create the appearance of repentance without ever following through. 

Offering restoration to someone who is not repentant harms both people in the relationship. Christian counselor Darby Strickland, author of Is It Abuse? writes,

Starting restoration work before there is robust repentance harms both parties. If a harmed person tries to rebuild a relationship with a person who continues in the same sin, he or she remains vulnerable. Further, each new infraction erodes the repair attempts. Over time this can lead to a layering of betrayal that can culminate in hopelessness. As for offenders, if they continue in sin, they are not only in spiritual danger but will be tempted to look away from their own hearts and focus on their frustration over not being forgiven.²

Rather, what makes the melding of forgiveness and reconciliation so powerful is when both parties have come together. The one in the wrong strives to do what is right and the one who was harmed decides, “I will not treat you as you deserve and I will patiently work with you to see this relationship made anew.” Both are doing incredible work of healing and restoration, both are making sacrifices, and both are taking risks. 

But when we require that forgiveness must always accompany reconciliation, we demand that people return to relationships where trust has not been earned. “Trust does not just reappear after the offender makes an apology,” Strickland writes.³ While forgiveness is a one-sided gift that can be given even if the person remains unchanged, trust is a reward for good character. I can forgive my boys when they choose to colour on something other than paper, but that doesn’t mean I will trust them to play with markers unsupervised. Instead, I will wait until they have proven they will not colour on the walls and furniture the moment I turn my back. 

This isn’t just true in parenting but in all relationships; we don’t divulge our deepest secrets to strangers or entrust them with what is most precious to us right away, but only to those who have proven faithful with what we have already given them. Friendships are grown and cultivated, not spontaneous and instantaneous.

This is why it’s not more virtuous for either Dolly or Karenin to immediately restore their spouses to the same place of love and trust, pretending that all is fine between them. Neither act can be called a more merciful or forgiving option than walking away. Yes, they may choose to work on their relationships, there must be a time of testing the repentance and certain boundaries until then. It is a lack of wisdom to put our hearts in the hands of those who have proven they will show little care for them. 

Forgiveness is not about immediately trusting the person who hurt us, but choosing to not treat them how they have treated us. Forgiveness means we walk away instead of exacting revenge, and that walking away may look different for different situations. Hambrick writes, “forgiveness is what allows us to express hurt as hurt rather than hurt as anger . . . When you forgive, you are not making a commitment not to feel hurt. You are making a commitment about what you will do with the hurt when it flares up.”⁴

The Difference Between Bitterness and Boundaries

Believers are often accused of bitterness when they put boundaries around those who have harmed them. But it isn’t bitter to remember how someone harmed us and change the way we interact with them, nor is it bitter to warn others of their harmful ways. Bitterness is when we plot vengeance in our hearts even if we have no intent on carrying it out or unnecessarily ruin their reputation. 

Hambrick writes, “Socially, forgiving means refraining from tarnishing the reputation of the person who hurt us for reasons other than protecting others.”⁵ It is bitterness that causes Karenin to desire to publicly humiliate his wife and take her son away from her even though he wants nothing to do with the son. But it’s wrong to call his lack of trust in her a lack of forgiveness. 

In the words of the Dixie Chicks, “Forgive? Sounds good / Forget? I’m not sure I could.”⁶ When someone comes to us with a story of betrayal, we should never encourage them to “forgive and forget” and to never think of the heinous act again. Dolly could have sympathized with Karenin’s pain and called him to show kindness to Anna, and reminded him that it will not fix his broken heart to stomp her into the mud. As believers, we should encourage those who have been harmed to choose kindness in the face of hate, and prudence and wisdom in the giving of their hearts. This is the Christian way, not the immediate reconciliation that Dolly pleaded for Karenin to make. 

The Necessity of Repentance

This is true grace, grace like God shows. What makes grace so amazing is that it changes us; we cannot in the face of it remain the same. That’s the kind of forgiveness we receive from God; he shows grace to the undeserved, but that always comes with faith and repentance. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Jesus declared (Mark 1:15 CSB, cf. Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Luke 13:3; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 2 Pet. 3:9). Repentance isn’t just a confession of sin or wrongdoing, but a turning away from that sin and wrongdoing. 

Darby Strickland reminds us that repentance is a vital part of both our relationship with God and with one another.⁷ The Bible says that those who love Christ will obey his commands, and that to continually disobey him proves they do not belong to him (John 15:9–14; 1 John 2:3–6; 3:7–10). As Hambrick writes,

When God forgives us, he does not assume we are a “finished product.” God remains active in our life to remove the sin he forgave. Forgiveness is meant to change us, not leave us as we were. Similarly, when we forgive someone, it is right to expect that our grace toward them will have an impact on them. If someone does not agree about the wrongness of their sin and desire to change, then the most our forgiveness can do is set us free from bitterness. It would be unwise to restore the relationship to the same level of trust it had before.⁸

This doesn’t mean we are saved by works, just as our relationships are not reliant on good works from the other person. It means that true love comes with the right actions, and when we proclaim we love someone, we treat them a certain way. If we choose sin over and over again, fully aware of how our choice harms another, we reveal what our heart truly adores—and it’s not the one we’re demanding forgiveness from. Actions, not words, prove character. Or, in the words of Jesus, you will know them by their fruit (Matt. 7:15–20). 

I’ve had to live this tension myself. I was married for seven years, and from the start there were difficulties with my husband’s anger. During those years, we sought counseling from pastors, professionals, Christian counselors, and secular counselors. Despite his apologies, confessions, and promises to get better, he never followed through. Over time, the anger escalated to abuse, until in the final year it became directed not just at me but our children too. 

When I asked him to leave the house until he was safe to be around, I witnessed a new side of him. He changed the narrative; he was not the abusive one but I was, and he had never done any of the things he had once admitted to (even the things I had in his own writing). The same day he hired a lawyer to begin the process for divorce. 

That day when my ex-husband flipped the script on me concerning his abuse, as devastating as it was, I realized that had always been his mindset and therefore the reason why he never changed. I also knew there was no point in seeking reconciliation. If he had been truly repentant and made steps towards change, maybe things would have been different. But he persisted in the lies, taking them to people in the community, professionals, friends, and family. I knew no amount of counseling or attempts at reconciliation would fix what he had broken.

Never think less of the forgiveness you have shown if it means you are keeping someone at an arm’s distance, or perhaps out of your life altogether. You are exercising wisdom, and it is a kindness to not just yourself but to others when you declare, “I will no longer allow you to hurt me.” We show anyone watching that goodness and love have a high standard that must be upheld. We proclaim that being made in the image of God means we have worth and deserve to be treated rightly. This is not unforgiveness or bitterness, but faithfulness to the God who made us and loves us. 

Let’s not confuse forgiveness and restoration as synonymous. Sometimes they will be, and in situations where they are not we can still hope for a day when reconciliation is made possible. But we must never assume they will come hand-in-hand. Instead, each story must be carefully inspected and we must seek to protect every person made by the gracious hand of God.

1. Brad Hambrick, Making Sense of Forgiveness: Moving From Hurt Toward Hope (Greensboro, North Carolina, United States of America: New Growth Press, 2021), 1.

2. Darby Strickland, “How to Discern True Repentance When Serious Sin Has Occurred,” Journal of Biblical Counseling34, no. 3 (2020): 30–47, https://rw360.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/3-How_to_Discern_True_Repentance_When_Serious_Sin_Has_Occurred-Strickland-1.pdf, 32.

3. Strickland, 34.

4. Hambrick, 10.

5. Hambrick, 17.

6. “Not Ready to Make Nice,” track 3, The Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way, Columbia Records, 2006.

7. Strickland, 30.

8. Hambrick, 10.