The Wound That Only Opens From the Inside

In 2001, psychophysiologist Dr. Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet conducted a landmark study at Hope College that revealed something pastors have long suspected. She asked participants to recall someone who had hurt them deeply — and then monitored what happened inside their bodies. When subjects mentally rehearsed the offense, replaying it like a loop, their cortisol levels surged. Blood pressure climbed. Heart rate spiked. Muscle tension increased. Their bodies responded as though the original wound were happening again, right there in the lab.

But here is what stopped the researchers: when those same participants were guided to practice empathic responses toward their offender — when they chose, even tentatively, to extend forgiveness — every single physiological marker began to normalize. The body calmed. The heart slowed. The muscles released.

Unforgiveness, it turns out, is not a wall that protects us. It is a wound we reopen from the inside, day after day, flooding our own bloodstream with the chemistry of threat.

The Apostle Paul wrote, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger" — and the Greek word he chose means to lift it up and carry it away, the way a surgeon removes what is killing healthy tissue.

Forgiveness is not pretending it did not hurt. Forgiveness is refusing to let the injury keep injuring you. God does not ask us to forgive because the other person deserves it. He asks because we were never designed to carry it.