My friend Suzie just released her book, The Unburdened Heart, and I’m so excited about the power and potential of her life-changing message. I had the honor of writing the foreword for her book, and I’d love to share my heart with you about it – today:
I don’t know exactly when it started. I just remember feeling angry and frustrated with my husband – almost every single day – on and off for months. One evening after an argument, J.J. told me that no matter what he did or how hard he tried, it was never enough.
He was right, but I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was tired of being mean and miserable so I started asking God to show me what was going on. To help me figure out how, after seven years of a fairly happy marriage, we had gotten to this ugly place.
Over time I sensed God was showing me that I wanted J.J. to make up for what my dad had never been as a father to me and as a husband to my mom. I think I was trying to create my own version of “happily-ever-after,” and in doing so I became very controlling and critical.
You see, years as a child in a broken home with a broken heart had led to a significant sense of loss and deep disappointment. But I had never processed, grieved or let go of what I thought I deserved yet didn’t have.
My unforgiving heart and unfulfilled hopes had created bitter expectations. I thought if I could get J.J. to be the husband and dad I wanted him to be, maybe my broken past and shattered dreams could be put back together.
I knew I needed to deal with my pain, but I couldn’t just forgive and forget it. It wasn’t that easy. There were layers of hurts and issues I’d never dealt with.
I took the first step by acknowledging my pain and giving myself permission to feel it. Then I carved out time each week to unpack the memories and events that led me to this hard place and then I allowed God to heal them.
I asked Jesus to help me grieve the loss of things I wanted that I would never have from my dad. And I asked Him to walk me through the steps of forgiving my father so I could release the anger, abandonment and hurt that had held me prisoner for so long.
It was a process that took time, prayer and courage, but it was worth it. I was worth it. My marriage was worth it.
Like most people, I didn’t want to face my pain. I didn’t have time and I didn’t want to dig it all up. But I am so glad I did! Through it all, God showed me how to let go of my past hurts so I could take hold of hope and healing I never thought I would find.
As I worked through what happened in my childhood, and how it was affecting my marriage, I realized I needed the help of a friend. I needed someone who had walked a similar road to come alongside me to offer wisdom and another perspective in my healing journey.
Through the pages of The Unburdened Heart, Suzie Eller is that friend. Offering wisdom and a heart full of compassion, Suzie will come beside you and mentor you each step of the way. Yet Suzie doesn’t just share from a place of knowing about forgiveness; she writes from a place of living it and giving it, when it’s hard.
One thing I love about Suzie and the message she lives, is that she’s not a cookie-cutter Christian. She won’t just say, “You need to forgive.” She knows it’s not that easy, but she also cares too much to leave you in that hard place. Instead, she’ll take your hand and walk you through the process, sharing her story as you look at yours.
Bringing depth to the layers of a forgiving-life, Suzie will help you explore the different meanings of forgiveness as she walks with you through your unique journey. She’ll also introduce you to amazing women and men who have offered their hearts, their stories and their courage to help you recover yours!
Chapter by chapter Suzie will invite you, even urge you at times, into a place of hope and healing because she wants you to experience the sacred transformation that forgiveness brings.
I hope you’ll accept her invitation. It will require time, courage and perseverance but you are worth what it takes. You see, forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves when we offer it to others. In doing so, we don’t forgive so we can forget. We forgive, as we have been forgiven, so we can be set free from our past and live with confident hope in our future.
I’m giving away 2 copies of Suzie’s book – The Unburdened Heart: Finding the Freedom of Forgiveness. This your invitation to discover the freedom of forgiveness. Enter to receive a copy by clicking “Share Your Thoughts” to share your thoughts or simply let us know why you’d like to win a copy of Suzie’s book. {If you are reading this via email, click here to enter to win.}
I would like to receive this book because I know there is much more to learn about forgiveness… There are always opportunites to exercise forgiveness, be it through offense of speech or actions. Therefore,I always have need for more reminders of the need for forgiveness for myself and the grace needed to extended that forgiveness to others.
God is good…all the time!
I am currently unemployed and winning this book would be such a blessing to me. Thanks so much for all you do!
I too struggle with forgiveness. It seems as if everyone I trust eventually lets me down in one area or another. Recently it has been my husband. I discovered he lied to me about some things before we were married, and I am having an extremely hard time forgiving him and moving forward in the direction that I feel God would have me go. Perhaps this book would help me in that endeavor. It would be wonderful to have a new lease on my marriage….
I would love to read this!
I’ve been a Christian for about 14 years. My husband left when my kids were little. I became a Christian 6 months later. I raised my children in the Lord but life was rough. Then my kids moved out and I remarried a man who got cancer 10 days after we married. I never wanted to get remarried. My mom was married 4 times and her 4th husband murdered her. Life hasn’t gone that well for me. :/ I thought marriage would fix me. Ha! We all know that just brings more struggles. So here I am, struggling. Watching my kids do things no mother wants to see but has no control over. A sick husband and I support us. I have been asking God to do surgery on my heart (after I ask Him to fix everyone else of course.)
Just the title alone is enough to prompt me to want this book. I’ve experienced the relief and joy of forgiveness throughout my less than perfect 25-year marriage. I’m not counseling a young friend who needs to learn how to forgive and enjoy God’s peace regardless of her life circumstances. I’d love to win this book and share it with her. Thank you for considering me.
A book that I would love to receive to read and will allow me to share insights with my daughter and the young women of my Sunday school class. So timely for my generation and generations to come.
I loved A Confident Heart and would love to read this one too!!
Well-I normally don’t do this sort of thing. I’m pretty self-contained and feel pretty weird sharing anything very personal in a public format. But I think I am supposed to do this because I have tried to back out twice and here I am. My father has done some pretty awful things to his family and told me several years ago after a somewhat unpleasant “discussion” that if he had to do it all over again he wouldn’t change a thing. I have really struggled with forgiveness in so many areas of my life. That’s it.
Would love to win the book, forgiving is a difficult thing and it’s always good to learn.
I’d love to win this book. Thank you!
God has forgiven my endless failures, but I am having a hard time dealing with Satan’s constant reminders of a few rather harsh royal screw-up’s… the reminders also come after I have a single flash memory of the earthly love of my life shattered our marriage and sent our 4 children and myself packing to live at my parents house 5 states away. We have since then reunited, and are attempting to put pieces back in place even with small slivers still missing. I love my husband with every fiber of my being. My Lord has forgiven me… I need help with the slivers that tend to slice when I least expect it… thank you, Renee, for all of your encouragement and reality checks. You are a tremendous blessing in SO many ways. 😉
Would love to win this book!!
Thanks, Renee, for such a beautiful blog post today about my new book. You just totally made my day!
As God often does, He has been bringing forgiveness as a recurring theme in my life. Recently a women at church invited me to her evening bible study which was well under way. My first night there, topic- forgiveness. Turn on the morning radio program, topic- forgiveness. Etc. And now, browsing Facebook, book giveaway topic- forgiveness! I think win or lose this giveaway THIS is a book I need to read. Thank you for the opportunity and praise God for His relentless pursuit of refining me.
Wow! I would love to win this book because I need this book! Reading Suzie’s story is like looking back on my entire life and I struggle so much with wanting my husband to be everything that I’ve never had and then being bitter and angry towards him when he is not what I think he should be. I know I have to forgive and let go of the past and that God can heal those hurts, but it is a daily struggle.
Winning a copy of this book would be such a blessing! Forgiveness is something I long to understand better – especially after the betrayal of two very dear friends happened with no real explanation just four months before I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. To walk through that valley without those friends was intensely lonely, to say the least. Thankfully, God has been near, and my relationship with Him has been deepened through it all. These early months of the year are the ‘anniversary’ of the betrayal and serve to bring into sharp focus the continuing work of forgiveness I still need to grab onto.
Hi! I SO need this book to help me forgive a couple people who have really hurt me lately. It has been SO hard to do, especially when they have done it before. Just trying to give it all to God, but still hard to not think about every day! Been praying every day for these people. Could really use this book! It looks SO good! Thank you and God Bless!! Julie
I used to think that, before you could forgive someone, they had to apologize to you. The Lord has been working with me and showing me that forgiving is not accepting an apology. Forgiveness is putting down the burden. It’s letting go of the pain that the person caused you, and not letting the pain and anger and bitterness tear you apart anymore. Forgiveness is so freeing!
This is exactly what I needed to “hear”! Thank you for sharing!!
This posting on facebook caught my attention simply because I saw the word “forgiveness” in the description. I have struggling through some forgiveness with my mother and working through some old wounds that have recently become “infected” by strong beliefs in lies that the devil has been telling me about my upbringing. Being raised in a home where I was screamed at over spilled milk, I seen developed extreme actions of timidity and perfectionism. These controlling qualities have affected many areas of my life and not in a positive way. In so many ways I have tried to say the magic words in forgiving my mother but nothing seemed to stick, the wound was still there, though buried deep down, still damaging my self-confidence. I have been reading Prov 31 ministries devotionals and I came across an article that encourage woman to forgive our mothers for their pasts, they are imperfect works under construction…and loved by the Lord, and to celebrate and enjoy the woman that their mother has become. This message guided me to a slow but steady journey to forgiving my mother for the past. The wound is sometimes re-prenetrated by hurtful actions but I am hanging on to whatever truth I can grasp to remember that God has a plan, He has me on a journey to be strengthened and molded into His beautiful masterpiece. I am very happy to see that another book has been published on forgiveness, so many of us walk around with wounds that can be mending if we just allow it.
Forgiveness is something I’ve fought all my life. Through things like a parents abandonment, sexual abuse, betrayal, rape, physical abuse, etc. I held on to the pain and refused to extend forgiveness. Now, I have realized how much precious time I lost by holding on to that. Once I learned to forgive others, I felt a huge freedom but the hardest thing has been learning to forgive myself. I blamed myself for so many things that were absolutely out of my control. Forgiving myself has probably had the greatest impact and opened the world of finding peace with God. I’m quite sure this book would continue to grow my relationship with Christ.
I would love to win a copy of this book because it feels like exactly what I am going through lately. I have an amazing husband who would walk over nails to make me happy, and I am still so critical.
God and I have been talking a lot about the peace and freedom in an unburdened heart.
This book is totally calling to me during this season of my life. We are celebrating our 20 years this October and I want to live the life WE were meant to live not the one we are carrying our baggage through.
Forgiveness is more for us than the other person, or just as much for the other person.
I would LOVE to have this book!! Until recently I thought I was a forgiving person, but there is one area(person) in my life that I keep giving the situation to God , but find myself going back to:(
I have for to completely let go & let God 🙂
Let go and let God!!!
The past 7years of my life have been An emotional roller coaster. It began with the birth of my daughter. She was born with a congenital heart defect that required open heart surgery at 6 weeks of age. Life went on, she survived but is still not cured will need more open heart surgeries in the near future. I hated GOd and didn’t want to hear that “he chose me and my husband for a reason”, no reason was good enough in my book. Fast forward to this past year and my husband and went through some very bad marital issues. I had to make some very serious choices. I choose God and slowly forgiveness to my husband. Forgiveness is very hard. I struggle with it every single day. But finding God has helped me so much.
I’d love to win a copy and see how I can make a difference in my life. Married for 10 yrs, 3 children, lots of rensentment in my past with broken home, yet I have forgiven my mother, I feel like I have an injustice to my children as I’m not a “girly girl mom” type… I’ve always been a tom-boy! I really wish I would have accepted my mom sooner. I forgave her, but I still have days when I feel like I don’t really have a leg to stand on for my girls….
Learning to make changes daily and rely on God for guidance…. daily communication with my God is making me stronger.
I would love to win this book! I need to be reminded that we are to forgive those as He has forgiven us. Often times easier said than done for me.
Wow! This book sounds like God is talking to me! Your first paragraph has so many similarities to my life. Thank you for sharing and I hope to read your book soon 🙂
Sounds wonderful.
Forgiveness can be the most difficult thing to give but the blessings, peace and love that will follow can change a heart of stone to one that freely forgives. I have been released by forgiving those who have harmed me. I pray that those that read your message find freedom for their hearts and minds by learning to forgive.
Your entry today resonates with me on many levels… It is amazing to me how I think I have forgiven someone for something and yet it can resurface seemingly out of the blue and I become angry all over again…would love a copy of the book– thanks for your insight–
Forgiveness is hard and easy at the same time…. It’s easy as long as you don’t have to deal with the person again, it’s hard to keep reminding yourself that you have forgiven them when you have to see and interact with them daily.
Forgiveness has always been a struggle of mine. Understanding it is so hard for me as forgiveness did not exist while growing up. Without an example, it is hard to understand and do.
My marriage needs this. I am in a season of life that I want to forgive and let go so I can love my husband in the way God truly desires for me to do.
Sounds like a book I could really use!
I have come a long way in my walk with the Lord and I am finding peace and happiness despite what others have done to me or said about me. Yet I struggle with forgiveness daily. However, I can think of nothing as freeing as letting go and trusting God!!!
I would really like to win a copy of this book because this is exactly where I am at right now. I have started seeing a counselor and have started the process of working through my pain from the past and embracing forgiveness. What an overwhelming task it seems to be. I am trying to just trust God that he has begun this and will finish it and guide my steps all along the way. This book seems like it would be a huge help.
I would love to read this entire book. I read the intro and
Know it’s what everyone needs for true victory. Forgiveness is
A topic that everyone needs to be an expert on! I would love to
Win a copy but if I don’t, I’ll be buying one. Thanks
Proverb 31 gals for living for Jesus and not for
Selfish gain!
Hi Renee, Thank you so much for sharing your story. I already shared with Suzie how for someone like myself who has already read a lot about forgiveness, hearing someone’s personal story of forgiveness has the power to break the isolation that unforgiveness brings and ushers in trust. That trust makes all the difference in being able to walk out of bondage. My copy of Unburdened Heart is already on its way but I would love a copy of your book to read after Unburdened Heart. It would be a great follow up! Bless you.
I am completely captivated by all I have heard and read so far about this book. I would love to win a copy as I know the Lord has led me to it. I have at least three people in my life struggling to forgive and I lack the words. I think this would make a great book to start a small group (of healing) with!
Would love to win! The book sounds so intriguing.
I have been struggling with unforgiveness for 2 years because of a betrayal. I know I need to completely forgive to be free, but I struggle everyday! I would love to win a copy of The Unburdened Heart!!
I would like to win a copy of The Unburdened Heart because lately God has been really challenging me on all areas of unforgiveness in my life. I know p31 produces great material and would love to read this book.
I would love to have the opportunity to read this book to help me understand why I am usually the person doing the forgiving all the time. Maybe it will help me understand why some people don’t feel or refuse to forgive people. I am constantly going back and forth with my sister on why forgiveness is important. Nothing seems to work. It has been 2 yrs. now and we have not spoken. I pray about it often, but don’t feel that I should be the one that always gives. I feel bad for feeling this way, but tired of her constantly doing this every few years, and I always have to be the bigger person. Am I wrong in feeling this way??? I would love to read this and have a better understanding of these burdens.
I think I NEED this!
I’ve recently discovered how to accept God’s forgiveness but still struggle with forgiving others. I look forward to reading this book!!
I have lived through a lot in my life, where many people have done and said things that I know I need to forgive, but I cannot seem to find the way to do it. Every time I try, I just end up frustrated, upset, and more hurt than before.
My mom had 3 husbands that were not good examples of husbands or fathers. From my biological father that did things to me that cost him custody rights when I was 3, to her second husband who reminded me daily that I was not his daughter, and therefore was his personal slave, to her current husband who spends his time in one room, while the rest of us (including my mother) are in another room. This has led me to do/say/behave in certain ways that I am not proud of, and has hurt me further.
I have tried to forgive all of these people repeatedly, and fail every time. I am ready to forgive, and move on, but am very unsure of how to do so. I would love to read what Suzie has to say on the subject, and embark on the journey to forgiveness and peace.
~Eryn
I have read several of the books written by the women of Proverbs 31 ministries including “A Confident Heart” Which my daughter is reading now. I would love to have this book as I struggle as a lot of us do with unforgiveness. Thank you for your ministry !!
Hello, I read your incert about part of your journey. Take that journey into forgiveness this is just part of your story…
There is an ending that God has for you has you winning in the end