There are things in life that hurt us in ways we never expected.

Sometimes it is something someone did. Sometimes it is something they failed to do. Sometimes it is a loss, a disappointment, an unanswered prayer, a relationship that changed, an opportunity that disappeared, or simply the painful realization that life did not turn out the way we thought it would.

And when something hurts deeply, we naturally want answers.

We want to understand why it happened. We want to know what the other person was thinking. We want them to recognize what they did. We want things to be made right.

And sometimes, beneath all of that, there is another desire we don’t always recognize.

We don’t want someone to get away with hurting us.

We don’t want them to walk away as though nothing happened while we are left carrying the weight of it.

We don’t want to feel like we were fooled, overlooked, mistreated, or somehow made a fool of.

So we keep thinking about it.

We replay conversations. We imagine what we should have said. We wonder what we don’t know. We watch for signs. We try to connect the pieces. We wonder whether the person will ever realize what they did or whether life will ever make them answer for it.

And without realizing it, we can begin carrying something that was never meant to become ours forever.

The pain is already painful enough.

But sometimes it is our need to understand it, control it, correct it, or see justice happen that keeps the pain alive.

I think there comes a point when we have to ask ourselves a different question.

What if I don’t have to know?

What if I don’t have to see how everything turns out?

What if I don’t have to make sure someone understands what they did?

What if I don’t have to witness their consequences?

What if I don’t have to make life prove to me that what happened to me mattered?

Because God already knows.

He sees what I saw and what I didn’t see. He knows the conversations I was never part of, the intentions I could never know, the things that happened behind closed doors, and the parts of the story that will never be explained to me.

And maybe trusting God sometimes means allowing Him to hold the parts of the story I cannot resolve.

That doesn’t mean pretending something didn’t hurt.

It doesn’t mean allowing people to continue hurting us.

It doesn’t mean we don’t establish boundaries, walk away, speak the truth, or make wise decisions.

It simply means we stop believing that our peace depends on everything being settled first.

Some things may never be explained.

Some people may never apologize.

Some situations may never look fair.

And yet, we can still be free.

Because peace doesn’t always come when the situation changes.

Sometimes peace comes when we finally stop demanding that the situation change before we allow ourselves to be okay.

There is something incredibly freeing about saying, I don’t know how this will turn out, but God does.

I don’t know what they will do.

I don’t know whether they will ever understand.

I don’t know whether they will ever regret it.

I don’t know whether I will ever receive the explanation I wanted.

But I know that I don’t have to carry the responsibility of making everything right.

God can handle what I cannot see.

He can handle what I cannot control.

He can handle the parts of the story I will never know.

And perhaps this is one of the quietest forms of faith: not having all the answers and choosing to trust Him anyway.

There is another kind of freedom that comes with this, too.

We don’t have to hate the people who hurt us.

We don’t have to become cold toward them.

We don’t have to treat them badly just because they treated us badly.

We don’t have to make sure they can see our anger.

And we don’t have to change our character to match the way someone else behaved.

Sometimes we think holding on to anger is a way of protecting ourselves. As if letting go of resentment means letting someone off the hook.

But forgiveness is not the same as saying what happened was okay.

Grace is not the same as pretending there were no consequences.

And kindness does not mean we have to give someone access to us that they have proven they cannot handle responsibly.

We can have boundaries without bitterness.

We can have wisdom without resentment.

We can remember what happened without allowing it to harden our hearts.

And sometimes we can simply continue to treat someone with the same basic kindness we would have shown them before—not because they deserve it, but because we don’t want what they did to change who we are.

I don’t want someone else’s brokenness to become mine.

I don’t want someone else’s choices to teach me how to hate.

I don’t want the things that hurt me to turn me into someone who spends the rest of her life looking for reasons to hurt back.

I want to be free enough to say, What you did was yours. What I choose to do with my heart is mine.

Because life will hurt us sometimes.

People will disappoint us.

Things will happen that we would never have chosen for ourselves.

And we cannot always prevent pain from entering our lives.

But we can decide how long we are going to let that pain occupy our hearts.

We can grieve without living in grief.

We can acknowledge what happened without continually revisiting it.

We can learn from what hurt us without allowing it to become the lens through which we see everything else.

And we can release the need to know how the story ends.

Maybe that is what surrender really looks like.

Not saying, “It didn’t matter.”

But saying, “It mattered. It hurt. And I am still choosing to put it in God’s hands.”

I don’t have to make sure everyone gets what they deserve.

I don’t have to make sure every wrong is acknowledged.

I don’t have to spend my life proving that I wasn’t foolish for trusting, loving, hoping, or believing.

I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder to see whether someone is getting away with something.

I can let them live their life.

And I can live mine.

Because there is still a life waiting for me beyond what hurt me.

There is still joy I haven’t experienced, peace I haven’t known, love I haven’t received, prayers I haven’t prayed, mornings I haven’t woken up to, and parts of myself I haven’t discovered yet.

I don’t want to spend all of that trying to keep watch over what God never asked me to carry.

So I am learning to leave some things unanswered.

Some things unresolved.

Some things unseen.

Not because I don’t care.

But because I trust that God sees what I cannot.

And maybe that is where the freedom begins.

When I finally realize that I don’t have to hold on to something just because it hasn’t been made right yet.

I don’t have to hate anyone.

I don’t have to punish anyone with my silence, my anger, or my bitterness.

I don’t have to become different because someone else was.

I can put it down.

I can breathe.

I can keep walking.

And I can trust God with the rest.

Until next time,