I’m Just a Guy: Who’s AshamedSample

When You Can’t Forgive Yourself

Have you ever thought it’s easier to believe that God forgives us than it is to forgive ourselves?

For the longest time, that’s how I saw the world. Slowly, the tide shifted—part of a long discipleship journey, not an overnight change.

A pivotal moment came in 2015 when my world turned upside down. My wife at the time said she was done and had found someone else. News like that can break a man. Even though she chose to leave, I blamed myself and felt heavy shame every time I looked in the mirror.

We had two daughters—three and five—whose world changed in an instant. One moment, it was “mommy and daddy together,” the next it was a roller coaster of emotions that shook them to their core. Watching them grieve only deepened my own. People did rally around me—men and women I’m forever grateful for—because if I’d had to walk that valley alone, I don’t know that I would have made it.

After the divorce and the dust had settled, I wrestled with a new identity and kept circling back to one painful line: I failed as a husband. No matter how many times folks said, “This wasn’t your fault,” I wouldn’t let that truth sink in.

Things didn’t begin to clear until I started wrestling with forgiveness. I knew God’s forgiveness was available, yet I refused to accept it. I treated my failure like an absolute—immovable, irrefutable—and wouldn’t consider that any other verdict could be true.

Forgiveness takes us to uncomfortable places. It asks us to accept what happened and to surrender control. We can’t rewrite our past, but we can surrender it. We can’t erase our mistakes, but we can let God redeem them.

My encouragement—if you’re struggling to forgive yourself—please hear this:
If you have confessed, God has forgiven. Full stop. He is faithful and just. Holding yourself in a prison that Christ has already unlocked doesn’t make you holy—it keeps you hurting.

Starting today, name the wound, confess what’s yours to own, and then receive what He freely gives: cleansing, not condemnation; redemption, not replay. Hold your head high and remember that in Jesus, you are not the man of your worst moment—you are the man He is making new.

Reflection Questions:

• What past failure are you still holding against yourself?
• What does it mean for you to truly believe that God has forgiven you?