What If I Can't Forgive Myself?
Okay, Healing Is Great...But What If I Still Feel Guilty?
“This is how we know that we belong to the truth…”
—1 John 3:19
It’s a beautiful evening, the kind of day where you want to lay in bed all day and do nothing. But if you’re like me, you would probably beat yourself up about all the stuff left to do on your to-do list for the rest of the week.
Do you have an overactive conscience?
Don’t get me wrong, the conscience is a great thing. It tells you when you’re going wrong—when you probably shouldn’t have replied that way to your colleague at work.
It pricks you when you lie and say, “I would have come to your party, but I have a meeting that evening,” when the only other meeting you have is with your bed—and the main agenda is sleep.
Your conscience is like a mirror that lets you see yourself for who you are—unfiltered. While everyone else might see the made-up, put-together version of you, it has the low-down on all the quirks and not-so-shiny parts as well. It’s like that tough-love friend who is not afraid to look you in the eye and tell you, “Look, you messed up.”
And that’s great. But sometimes, friendships can get toxic.
I Answered the Altar Call 6 Times
Growing up, I attended this nice, conservative Christian school that taught morals and stuff. We had things like morning devotion at the assembly ground each day, had missionaries from The Navigators come to talk to us most Mondays, and learnt Bible verses in sing-song tunes and heartfelt children’s songs that I still remember to date.
The other day, I caught myself humming:
“I am a C, I am a C-H, I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N, and I have C-H-R-I-S-T in my H-E-A-R-T...”
On one of those Mondays, when we would have extended assembly time and share animated stories of Mary Slessor and David Livingstone and their missionary journeys to the dark continent, the School Evangelist (yes, we had one) came up to lead an altar call. She talked about a God who knew all things and would never allow the wicked to go unpunished. And then asked that if we wanted to repent and give our lives to Christ, we should raise our hands or come to the front.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will tell you—I was so moved, so touched by the fact that I had done something or the other two months before, and Jesus could not be my friend because of that. So out I came, head hung low, shedding tears, and deeply remorseful. After that prayer, I felt better again—washed, clean, and ready to be friends with Jesus. Until the next assembly day.
Each time the altar call was made, I would convince myself that Jesus had not really forgiven me, and I needed to apologise all over again. And out I would come, to join the rest of the people at the front dedicating their lives to God. Only I was doing it for the sixth time in a row.
The next time I tried to come out for another altar call—making my way from the back of the line, head hung low in guilt and remorse—my form teacher looked at me and said, “You do not need to come out again; you have already given your life to Christ.”
That was the end of my altar call run, but sadly, those words did not exorcise me of the guilt I felt. Jesus might have forgiven me, but this 7-year-old did not yet know how to forgive herself.
A Hard Taskmaster
Perhaps you are like 7-year-old me. Maybe you struggle with letting yourself off the hook for things that happened in your past.
The truth is, you cannot move on from the past until you forgive yourself.
Forgiveness is like the sterile gauze that is wrapped over the wounds of your past, giving it the space to heal nicely.
Imagine you went to the hospital with a cut on your arm, and after the wound had been cleansed, your doctor is about to put a bandage on it, but you tell her to stop.
“Hold on. I need to be able to touch it when I want to.”
It sounds ridiculous, but it’s the same thing we do when we hold out on forgiving ourselves. We revisit the hurts of the past —the silly mistakes, the careless actions, the words we said to that person that we can never take back—and we beat ourselves up:
How could you be so stupid? If only you didn’t do that… and on and on...
It’s like flogging a child over and over for the same mistake they committed years ago. You would not do that to a child you love, so why do you do it to yourself?
Remember the story of the wicked servant in the Bible? He owed his master a lot of money and could not pay it back, so his master cancelled the debt. This servant went away rejoicing but then encountered some other servant who owed him a much lesser amount of money. Although the servant pleaded and begged, he refused to heed and had him thrown in prison until he could pay every last penny. 1
Sometimes, we are like the cruel servant. Although God has forgiven us, we harass ourselves endlessly for the past and throw ourselves in prison, holding out on forgiveness until the conditions are perfect.
The truth is, the conditions will never be perfect.
If you made some careless mistakes when you were younger and had a baby out of wedlock, your baby would not magically disappear and everything go back to the way it used to be.
If you had a fight with someone you love and didn’t get a chance to reconcile with them before they passed, they will not somehow come back from the dead to hear you say you’re sorry.
Sometimes, we don’t get a chance to have do-overs.
Sometimes, we have to live with the mistakes—and with ourselves.
So what do we do?
What Happened After Eden
Remember Adam and Eve and the running joke that if Eve didn’t eat the fruit, we would probably all still be in Eden, singing Glory Bes and frolicking around happily without having to work our 9-5s?
Sometimes I wonder if it was a joke to them.
I wonder if, after they left the garden, Adam didn’t look over at Eve and say, “This was all your fault. We would still be in Eden if not for you.”
I wonder if they had fights about it, especially on days when Adam had to work extra hard, toiling under the hot sun, with the earth like brass beneath him.
Did he mutter under his breath and cast glowering looks at her? Did Eve shrink back into herself, weighed down by shame and guilt, and feeling worthless for that one mistake?
We would never know.
But somehow, I don’t think that was how it played out.
The Bible tells us they went on to have children—and even after their son Abel died and Cain was banished, Adam knew his wife again, and they had Seth.
It tells me they kept moving forward, no matter the events of the past.
Living With Eve
Think of your past self as Eve—the one who made the mistake, who ate the forbidden fruit that has caused you so much hurt and regret in the present. You can decide to sit on your high horse and see this past version of you as the enemy, or you can decide to look around you, take the grace and forgiveness that God offers, and learn to live again.
After Adam and Eve sinned, their eyes were opened and they discovered they were naked.
When God saw them, He told them the consequences of their actions: suffering and pain and separation from His presence. But He still offered them covering—in the sheepskin clothes He made for them.
God forgave them.
But it was up to Adam to forgive Eve and choose to build a life together.
“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”
— Amos 3:3
The Different Versions of You
Science tells us that a part of our brains called the prefrontal cortex is responsible for making sound decisions and judgment. 2
It’s the part of the brain that can help you decide that choosing to study for three hours every night rather than scrolling on Instagram is a better option, because in the long run, you will pass your exams. It’s the part of the brain that helps you delay gratification—that helps you choose to work out five days a week because your future self will thank you; the part that helps you say “No sex till marriage” because you know it is worth the wait.
Scientists tell us that this part of our brains doesn’t fully develop until about 25 years old. 3
So in fact, there are at least two different versions of you:
The version of you that existed before your prefrontal cortex was fully developed, and the version of you that exists now.
What would you do if you saw a grown man scolding a 7-year-old for a mistake he made?
“You should know better!” He screams at the child.
You would think it odd, because the older man has the benefit of experience and wisdom gained over the years, whereas the young boy doesn’t. You would probably say, “Cut him some slack; he’s only doing as he knows how to do.”
This is me telling you to cut your past self some slack.
The mistakes she made, he made—were perhaps avoidable, but maybe they didn’t know any better. Maybe they weren’t knowledgeable enough to make informed decisions.
“If Only We Could Go Back in Time”
I once co-managed a patient with a very sad story.
A 14-year-old girl, who had been in the village all her life. This town boy came from Lagos to the village for the Christmas holidays, and they began “dating.” He asked to sleep with her and she initially said no, but finally gave in—because he was her boyfriend and he “loved” her.
It happened just once, but she fell pregnant.
She had a difficult delivery, ended up with an obstetric fistula4, and had to stop school because it was embarrassing to always smell like urine. By the time she came in for management, we did an RVS screening and discovered that she was HIV positive.
All of this—from a single decision to say yes to Town Boy.
Meanwhile, Town Boy had gone back to the big city, perhaps never to be heard from again.
Listening to this story was so heartbreaking. If she knew… If an older version of herself could go back in time and tell her, “You’ll end up pregnant, out of school, with a fistula and HIV positive from this,” she would obviously not do it.
But she didn’t know.
And all this grown-up version can do for the past self is forgive her—and learn to move on.
And that’s all you can do for you too.
You cannot go through life being fractured—several versions of yourself locked up at different points. You cannot keep travelling through life when one version of you is huddled up, weeping bitterly for the mistakes they made—hurting because you choose not to forgive them.
Learning to Forgive
I know we’ve said a lot, but perhaps you’re still asking,
“You haven’t answered the question yet. How do I forgive?”
The answer is simple: by taking a cue from your Father.
Remember the story of the Prodigal Son?
Sometimes I think the main character in that story is actually the father.
The ever-patient father, who bore all things, believed all things, and hoped all things about his son. Who kept standing by the door, waiting for his son to come back. Who welcomed his son with open arms—no questions asked.
That is how your Heavenly Father forgives you.
He doesn’t watch you eating at the feast He called to celebrate your return and ask, “But wait, why did you run off in the first place? Are you satisfied now?”
He forgives—totally and completely.
“I will remember their sins no more…”
— Hebrews 8:12
He doesn’t remember your sin anymore—whatever it was.
And if He doesn’t bring it up at the dinner table, neither should you.
If He forgives you totally and doesn’t remember what you did any time He is upset, neither should you.
And just in case your conscience is a hyperactive, judgmental fellow, there is a passage of scripture for you:
“Whenever our hearts make us feel guilty and remind us of our failures, we know that God is much greater and more merciful than our conscience, and he knows everything there is to know about us.”
— 1 John 3:20 TPT
When next those thoughts of regret and remorse come, say to yourself:
“I know XYZ happened, but God has forgiven you, and I forgive you, [insert your name here].”
Say it as long as you need to for it to make sense.
Say it long enough until you believe it—because this is what your Father wants for you.
P.S.: This Father’s Day, your Heavenly Father wants you to know that He forgives you. He wants you to forgive yourself and move forward—complete and whole—into the future He has for you.
That is a Father’s Day gift you can give Him.
Don’t you think?
❤️ If you would like to talk more about forgiveness, leave a message, and I’ll be in touch.
Your sister,
Gift.
The entire story is found in Matthew 18: 23+35
Funahashi S. Prefrontal contribution to decision-making under free-choice conditions. Front Neurosci. 2017;11:431. doi:10.3389/fnins.2017.00431. Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2017.00431
Development of the prefrontal cortex is also noted to happen later in men than women. Perhaps that's why they say, “Boys will be boys”? Read more here: Arain M, Haque M, Johal L, Mathur P, Nel W, Rais A, et al. Maturation of the adolescent brain. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2013;9:449–61. doi:10.2147/NDT.S39776. PMID: 23579318; PMCID: PMC3621648.
An abnormal communication between a woman’s birth canal and bladder or rectum, usually following a long or difficult childbirth. It causes constant leaking of urine or stool, and poses serious medical and psychosocial problems if left untreated.