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.}
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I know I could really use reading this book. Certainly father issues and forgivenes I have to deal with in my life. i love reading the Proverbs 31 ministry devotionals and Renee Swope especially 🙂
What a powerful tool for taking the next steps on the journey to His Promised Land!
“For I am The Lord, your God, Who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will
help you.” Isaiah 41:13
Blessings dear friends! 🙂
I need to continue my journey and I really need this direction in my life I feel that this is a start in my healing and learning what God wants for me
forgiveness is hard. Through God’s grace I have learned it is better to forgive than to hold on and hinder our movement forward. I would like a copy of this book not for me but for my daughter who has to move to a place of forgivness just as you did with her Father. I have been seeking a way to help her through this- she is still young and I want and pray she can deal with this issue before she get deep into relationships. This book would be a blessing.
Wow this book sounds amazing…. I struggle with forgiveness because in the surface we say we forgive. But then later things will happen and we are wronged again, and you say ok I forgave you the last time or the last two time, maybe three times but at what point do I say ok you just don’t care who gets hurt…. I know in my heart I’m not perfect and God has never told me thats the last time I forgive you so I can’t either .. So how do I safe guard my heart from not feeling like I deserve this kind of treatment???? That’s why I want the book… I want to hear other testimonials of real people in today’s time that offer forgiveness and receive it too…
This book looks really good. Think I need to read it!
I would love to learn how to walk out forgiveness. I’ve had many opportunities to forgive. And it seems it’s easier to forgive worse offenses (though it is still difficult) of people I never have to see again than it is to forgive those who are close to me that I have to regularly forgive and live out life with.
Knowing this study is right on time, life is but a vapor and I pray all these hurts will be healed through this study before time that can’t be recaptured is gone. Please keep me in prayer and thank you for following God in this study.
I would loove this book….trying to work my way through years of hurt. I know that God is enough in my heart but my mind just keeps saying how unworthy I am! 🙁
I think this book would be very helpful for my mother. She is 79 and was raised in extreme poverty. There was alcoholism, and abuse. She was molested when she was in first grade. She carries so much anger and is distrustful of everyone. Last summer, she had open heart surgery. Now it seems as if she has a second chance. I only wish she could let go of the past, and forgive those who hurt her so badly. I would love to be able to give her this book in hopes of helping to facilitate her healing so her last years might be more joy filled than the previous 79.
This sounds like an awesome read. I would love to work through this book with a lovely christian of four months that I have recently started mentoring. Her heart is so on fire for the Lord. Her conversion to christianity has caused her family to be quite hostile towards her, and she is dealing with past childhood hurts and how to be loving and forgiving and Christlike while working through the pain.
Many Blessings to all of you at P31 for your great ministry.
Would love to read this then share with another.
I think I need this book more than I realize. Just this morning driving to work long past instances of feeling ridiculed and put down came to mind. Fortunately, the pain originally felt wasn’t there, but the remembrances did bring a small level of pain back to the surface. I want (and need) to be rid of it once and for all.
Dear Renee,
Thank you for your post. To be honest, most of the time I will not even acknowledge that an unforgiving heart applies to me! You see, to to most people I show only a positive, encouraging and loving disposition. I have always believed that this WAS me and it was because of the changes following Christ has brought to my life. Over the last several years, most recently and urgently the last two months, my marriage has deteriorated. My husband is very loving -and knows that my pain and criticism stems from unresolved bitterness toward abuse from family members in my past, as well the deaths of two of my young husbands. Your post spoke to me very clearly that I am not alone. I would appreciate and cherish the opportunity to walk alongside Suzie and learn to truly ‘unburden my heart’. God bless you and continue to strengthen you in your ministry, Liz.
I need this book. I am struggling with unforgiveness. I hate to hold grudges because I know it only burdens me. I used to be so forgiving even when people never realized or admitted their wrong. I know as Christians we are to forgive others and ourselves so we can be forgiven but my new circumstances isn’t permitting that. I was abused psychologically, mentally, verbally, emotionally, and physically and now I have signed up for therapy & counseling. I’m trying to figure out why God allowed this to happen on top of trying to find a job, & losing my home. How do I forgive someone who has little remorse for what they did? How do I forgive myself for being weak? My friends abandoned me & I’m really hurt by that. How do I forgive those pple who left when I needed them most? I need forgiveness & healing from it all.
Forgiveness has been very difficult for me. I lost my way for a while – and was uncertain about my future. My husband, who was a minister, left me for another woman. We had 4 small children, which the two youngest children were in diapers. Being raised in the church I was taught about forgiveness, but when it came time to forgive – I just didn’t know how. All my hopes and dreams for our future were destroyed, and I didn’t know how to get out of the dark hole I was in. There are days now when something will spark my memory and take me back to the pain, rejection and lies that I have lived with for so many years. I don’t want anything in life to hold me back, and especially the root of unforgiveness, which I know for a fact will drain the life and joy completely out of you.
As I sit here and read what YOU wrote, I weep in disbelief that those are someone else’s words, rather than my own. Sometimes it is really hard to believe that anyone lives or feels exactly the same pain or emotion that you do. This touches home so deeply. I think I have found a way to start forgiving others, but how do I ever forgive MYSELF???
I’d love to read this awesome story that parellels so many of us as women.
This book sounds like exactly what i and my family needs to break generational strongholds! I’d love to have a few copies!!
I would love to use Suzie, through this book, to continue on my own sometimes very hard, healing journey. I’m not hurt and angry, just numb right now. Sometimes so much so that I have a hard time letting God’s voice come through.