UNFORGIVENESS THE SILENT CAPTOR: A weight you were never meant to carry.

“Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”

~1 Peter 5:7 NKJV

Unforgiveness is a silent enemy and a weight that if left unconfronted, will attack your peace, sabotage your relationships and cause you to lose battles you were born to win. It’s easy to say “I forgive you” with your lips while still holding unforgiveness in your heart. You may think you’ve let it go, but your reactions will reveal the truth. Sometimes, all it takes is a memory, a voice, or a name to stir up bitterness you thought was buried. If your heart tightens and causes you to cringe at the mention of their name, you’re still holding on. And until you confront it, it will keep you rehearsing pain instead of releasing it. 

I know because I carried unforgiveness for years, a weight that quietly grew into rage and resentment. It shaped how I navigated hurt, offense, and disappointment, even when I thought I had healed. For a long time, I didn’t even realize I was housing this unforgiveness. It was buried so deep it disguised itself as strength and self-protection. But God, in his mercy, began to uncover what I couldn’t see.

I had been studying the Word of God, and suddenly, everything I read seemed to point directly to forgiveness. Scripture after scripture pierced my heart, and I knew God was speaking. He was highlighting something hidden, something I had survived but never confronted or surrendered. So I began to pray consistently, asking him to reveal what was buried deep in my heart.

One day, while watching a movie, I saw a father walking his daughter down the aisle. The moment was so beautiful and  so sacred. My eyes filled with tears, and I broke down uncontrollably. That simple scene unlocked a truth I had been suppressing: I had been harboring unforgiveness toward my father, a man who was already dead.

The day my father was murdered, I was just a little girl, excited, innocent, and eager to show him a dance move I had just learned. I kept calling his name, over and over, hoping he’d turn around, hoping he’d see me; but he didn’t. He was caught up in a heated disagreement, and in that moment, I was invisible.

Moments later, he was lying in a pool of blood, right in front of me.

And yet, the image that haunted me wasn’t the blood, the gunshots, or the sirens. It was my own face lit up with joy, calling out to him and getting nothing in return. No glance, nod or acknowledgment at all. Just silence.

That silence felt like the ultimate rejection. As a little girl, I believed I had done something wrong that caused him to ignore me, like I wasn’t worth seeing. I felt unwanted, unimportant, and unloved by my own father.

I truly believed that if he had just looked my way, if he had just seen the excitement in my eyes and the move I wanted to show him, it would have interrupted the argument. Maybe it would have saved his life. I was convinced: if he had just answered me, he wouldn’t have been killed.

I never blamed the person who murdered him. My anger wasn’t aimed at the gunman; it was aimed at the loss, the void, and what I believed to be my father’s choice to leave me.

I blamed him for dying. For leaving me fatherless. For not teaching me how a man should treat a woman and not being there to protect me from the men who didn’t know how. For not walking me down the aisle. For not being a grandfather to my children. I blamed him for every hug I never got, every kiss I never received, and every father-daughter moment I missed.

I was so angry with him that I could not forgive him. That unforgiveness followed me into adulthood, quietly influencing how I responded to rejection, betrayal, and love.

He was dead, so I couldn’t retaliate against him. But nothing could stop me from getting revenge against others who I felt had wronged or hurt me and that’s exactly what I did. That deep anger made it easy to play the game of get back, to shut down, to hold a grudge and disconnect to make sure no one ever got close enough to wound me that deep again.

But no matter how strong I appeared, I was still a hurt little five-year-old girl, internally suffering from and suppressing unforgiveness and rejection. I was held captive by a dead man.

I searched for someone to fill the void of being a fatherless child, not knowing that the only one able to fill it was God himself. Only he could father me in the places my earthly father couldn’t. Only he could heal what I didn’t even know was broken.

One of the ways God led me into healing was through writing. I sat down and let my heart speak freely to my father and to anyone else I may have been holding unforgiveness toward. I didn’t hold back. I poured out the pain, the questions, the anger, and the grief. Writing became a release for me. It was my way of saying, “I refuse to be a prisoner to this pain any longer.”

My writing wasn’t just ink on paper, it was a step toward restoration and the moment where I chose healing over rehearsing the same hurt, pain and patterns. But the healing didn’t stop there. Alongside writing, I prayed relentlessly for freedom from unforgiveness, from anger, and from offense. I cried out to God to break the cycle of bitterness and rejection that had followed me for years; and he answered. Not all at once, but layer by layer, moment by moment, he began to restore what had been broken and uproot what had been buried.

God began teaching me how to communicate instead of shutting down, how to apologize instead of deflecting, how to accept accountability for my actions and the part I played instead of making excuses or shifting blame, how to trust instead of building unnecessary walls, and most of all, how to forgive and release the weight of waiting on an apology or closure I may never receive.

I ask you today: How many dead things are you still holding onto? How many moments, relationships, or disappointments have you allowed to keep you stuck, a prisoner in your own story?

You were never meant to suppress what hurts. You were meant to surrender it. So find your release and let it become the place where your emotions are no longer trapped. Let the tears fall, let the words flow, let the music speak, let the paint drip and let it all go. 

Let the hurt go, let the anger go, let the bitterness go, let the grudges go. Those failed relationships and painful memories are not your prison, they are simply your past. Don’t remain an enemy to them. Walk away free. Forgive yourself, and let the past be what it was. You can’t erase it and you can't change it but you don’t have to relive it. You don’t have to let it destroy your joy, your peace, your relationships, or your future.

Forgive them for the lies, the missed opportunities, the selfishness, the abuse, the addictions, the rejection, and the shame. Forgive them for what they took from you, for leaving too soon, for giving you up, for not loving you the way they should have. Whatever it is, whatever they did or did not do, Forgive them, not for them, but for you!

Free yourself today. Cast your cares on God, because he cares for you. And he will never leave you, forsake you, or reject you.

#PrayThroughIt