Here is the latest article in our Peacemaking Series. To read the last article: Disagreements Bring Balance: When Silence Isn’t Peace
Few moments are more defining than those shaped by deep personal betrayal. When recalling these moments, the body often reacts before the mind—muscles tighten, the stomach turns, and the memory returns with clarity. The pain may be lasting, the consequences irreversible. In such moments, two responses emerge side by side: anger and forgiveness—two gifts, one in each hand, and while both feel justified, only one can be given.
This is the essential tension at the heart of forgiveness: not a passive emotion, but an active, deliberate, sacred decision. Forgiveness is often couched in dramatic moments of intense pain and wrongdoing, but it also needs to find its way into everyday moments, like when a loved one or stranger says a careless word or performs a negligent action. These small moments of hurt, if unforgiven, can lead to a lifetime’s accumulation of tension and resentment. There is great power for both the offender and the offended in the words, I forgive you. While it is often assumed that forgiveness must be earned, Christian theology and research present a different view. Forgiveness is a gift extended not only to the offender, but also to release and heal the one who forgives.
What Forgiveness Is and Isn’t
Forgiveness is often misunderstood in its meaning and execution, carrying a wide range of meanings across individuals and cultures. Some may conclude it is unattainable before ever fully understanding what it entails. This word deserves a thoughtful unpacking before being dismissed. Clarifications of what forgiveness is and is not can be helpful.
Forgiveness is not:
- Trusting the person who caused the wrong.
- Earned by the person who caused hurt.
- Forgetting what happened.
- Pretending the offense didn’t hurt.
- Letting the offender perpetuate the harm.
- Reconciliation, or prolonging a relationship.
Forgiveness is:
- A choice to act compassionately.
- Beginning to feel compassion as you act compassionately.
- Given whether or not the other person shows remorse or change.
- Something you do for you.
- A perpetual choice and not a single event.
Psychologist Everett Worthington––a leading expert on forgiveness whose research has informed much of the thinking in this article––identifies two forms of forgiveness: decisional and emotional.
Decisional forgiveness is consciously choosing to forgive—often for our own well-being rather than for the benefit of the offender.
Emotional forgiveness, by contrast, is when feelings of anger begin to soften into empathy and compassion.
While it is often believed emotions drive actions, research and experience suggest the opposite: choices and behaviors gradually shape feelings. Suggesting that often it may be required to act compassionately, before we feel compassion. Anger’s grip is hard and often shapes our journey with forgiveness. Anger can serve as an emotional strategy to overcome feelings of helplessness. However, as President Nelson taught, “anger never persuades,” and the sensation of control is really an illusion: change is up to the offender just as much as our decision to forgive is up to us.
Forgive For Your Own Sake
Worthington’s research shows forgiveness improves mental and physical health, lowers blood pressure, reduces anxiety, and even boosts the immune system. Forgiveness may not change the offender—but it will change the forgiver.
When we decide to release resentment, we begin to, as one Church leader put it, “rise to a higher level of self-esteem and well-being” characterized by emotional clarity and peace. Choosing to forgive doesn’t deny the pain—it simply refuses to let that pain define our path forward.
Examples of Forgiveness
At one point in early Church history, tensions ran high among members. People were hurting each other, holding grudges, and struggling to move forward. In that setting, the Lord gave a clear, striking command: His followers “ought to forgive one another.” Then He added something sobering. While God alone could decide “whom to forgive,” His disciples were not given that same privilege of discretion. They were “required” to forgive “all.”
It isn’t a suggestion. It isn’t conditional. This is a divine directive for healing and unity. The Lord didn’t ask them to ignore justice—He asked them to make room for His mercy by letting go of their desire to carry the offense any further.
Why would the Lord ask something so hard? Perhaps it is because the Lord knows that holding onto hate keeps our minds dwelling on the past and the offender. Focusing on the offense leaves no room for contemplating and engaging with His healing grace and hope in the present.
Jesus, hanging on the cross, uttered the words while looking at His torturers, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” In that moment, Christ modeled the highest form of forgiveness: extending compassion without having received any apology, show of remorse, or change. He recognized His abusers’ ignorance toward the depths of His pain and the extent of their own sin. Often, offenses are committed in such a state.
Even when buried by regret—when the weight of wrong choices seems too great, or the damage too deep—there is still hope. Healing doesn’t require perfection, only a willingness to turn toward the Savior. His grace reaches to infinite depths. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland tenderly reminds us, “It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.” The same is true for those who have caused wrong. They, too, remain within the reach of divine love, and those who forgive become more like Christ when hoping for their healing.
The REACH Method
So what is to be done when someone wants to forgive, but doesn’t know how or where to begin?
Start here. The Skyline Research Institute has published a series of short and playful videos focusing on tools and tactics for Peacemaking. These videos expound principles taught in President Nelson’s address “Peacemakers Needed” by complementing them with academic theories in psychology and conflict management. This current article is one in a series of articles published through Public Square, exploring the theories taught in each video more thoroughly.
The following video teaches principles of forgiveness from the perspective of a cat learning to forgive the dog who hurt them.
As shown in the video, these steps give a simple starting place for applying the divine and well-researched principles of forgiveness:
1. Name the Hurt.
Think of the person who hurt you. Let yourself feel the pain. Ask, “What specifically hurts me about this?” Is it betrayal? Injustice? Abandonment?
2. Imagine Speaking to Them.
What would you say if they were sitting before you? Get it all out—no filters. Write it in a letter (even if you never send it).
3. Switch Seats.
Now imagine being them. What might they say? What wounds might they carry? This doesn’t excuse them—it humanizes them.
4. Picture the Two Gifts.
In front of you are two gifts: your forgiveness and your anger. Which will you give them?
This process may need to be repeated many times—that’s okay. Forgiveness is rarely a one-time event. Like any habit, the choice to act with compassion must be practiced, especially in the face of discomfort. It may feel unnatural or insincere at first, but each time we choose kindness, the action becomes a little more familiar, a little more automatic. In any given situation, forgiveness is a muscle that strengthens with use. It’s a neural pathway that, with repetition, begins to favor hope, action, and healing over the depressing and well-worn track of rumination.
If the choice to act compassionately towards an aggressor feels out of reach, recognizing the need to forgive and its benefits is a good place to start. Even aiming for forgiveness softens your heart. Desire to want to forgive.
Based on his research, Worthington developed the REACH method:
- R – Recall the hurt.
- E – Empathize with the offender.
- A – Altruistic gift of forgiveness.
- C – Commit to forgive.
- H – Hold onto forgiveness when emotions rise again.
As the video showed, REACH is enacted step by step by recalling the hurt, imagining the offender’s pain, and choosing to give the “gift” of forgiveness.
The Choice Is Ours
The reality of pain is undeniable, and its depth is often known only to the individual and God. Life frequently confronts people with shocking and disproportionate suffering, much of it undeserved. Such experiences are not uncommon, though they remain deeply personal and often isolating.
Forgiveness does not erase the past—but it reclaims the future. It is not about denying hurt, but about refusing to let that hurt decide who we become. In a world full of real wounds and imperfect people, forgiveness offers something radical: not control over others, but healing within ourselves. Though anger may offer the illusion of power, only forgiveness frees us from the grip of the past and opens the way to peace.
As both research and revelation affirm, forgiveness is not just a moral ideal—it is a practiced, powerful, and divine pathway toward emotional, physical, and spiritual renewal.
The invitation remains: choose the gift of forgiveness. Give it again and again.
