Whether our wounds are caused by pain we have inflicted on others or pain as a result of what others have done to us, forgiveness is the key to healing.

God’s Forgiveness
The first and most important step in forgiveness is believing and accepting that God has forgiven us. This is the gospel message—that we are in need of forgiveness and God has brought about the means through the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ. God uses our wounds to remind us of how desperately we need him. Every wound we experience gives us a fresh perspective of the gospel. Whether we see God carry this out through forgiving us, or forgiving those who hurt us, the critical role we play in this process is simply accepting this forgiveness. Often this is also the hardest part, especially if it means accepting that God forgives even those who have hurt us (if they accept his forgiveness as well). But in order to receive healing, we must also receive this truth.

Forgiving Ourselves
Often we are most critical of ourselves. Though we acknowledge God’s forgiveness, we may still be beating ourselves up without even realizing it. For example, sexual immorality is a very personal sin that brings deep hurt. If you have experienced this sin, have you ever heard the voice in your head tell you that you are not “good enough” for a particular someone because of your past? Or maybe you don’t hear the voice, but your actions towards the opposite sex reflect this mentality. When we live this way, no matter what the sin may be, in essence we are saying that God’s forgiveness is not enough. But we must not listen to this lie. If God, who is greater than we are, can forgive us, then we most certainly should forgive ourselves.

Forgiving Past Partners
With regard to sexual sin (and I’m talking about consensual sex between two people), it is important that we recognize that it “takes two to tango.” Both partners sin against themselves and each other. So not only do we need to forgive ourselves, we need to forgive the other person too.

Forgiveness of our Future Spouse
Finally, for those who are still single and have experienced sexual sin, we may not realize how this sin affects our current relationships with others. Tied closely into our need to forgive ourselves is our need to believe in the forgiveness of our future spouse. Our God is a gracious and forgiving God; he does not plan a lesser marriage experience for those with sexual sin (or any other sin for that matter). He only plans his best for us. And for those of us to be married in the future, his plan is a relationship that reflects his love for us. That means it is God’s design that we forgive each other as he has forgiven us. It honors God that we look forward to that special person who will forgive us and see us as God sees us, beautiful, inside and out.

—Tena Embly lives in San Diego and is a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings series by J. R. R. Tolkien. Her cat's name is Hobbit.