Betrayal broke my friend’s heart—and her magnificent wings.

I take that back.

Betrayal itself didn’t level her. It was the pain of it—pain she wouldn’t release—that had kept her hobbling . . . for years.

But when she showed up for a country walk awhile back, I recognized a breakthrough. She was flapping, ready for liftoff. The spark I’d missed in her for a couple of decades was . . . well . . . sparking.

Thirty steps down the road, she began talking about this book: Forgiving What You Can’t Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again by Lysa TerKeurst.

Later, I looked it up. The inside cover copy gripped me immediately:

“Staying here, blaming them, and forever defining your life by what they did will only increase the pain. The more our pain consumes us, the more it will control us. Worse, it will keep projecting out onto others. And, sadly, it’s those who deserve it the least whom our unresolved pain will hurt the most. That person or people—they’ve caused enough pain for you, for me, and for those around us. It’s time to move forward.“

She sent me a copy, I devoured it . . . and knew I had share the book with you.

Here’s the gist:

You deserve to stop suffering because of what other people have done to you.

Have you ever felt stuck in a cycle of unresolved pain, playing offenses over and over in your mind? You know you can’t go on like this, but you don’t know what to do next. Lysa TerKeurst has wrestled through this journey. But in surprising ways, she’s discovered how to let go of bound-up resentment and overcome the resistance to forgiving people who aren’t willing to make things right.

With deep empathy, therapeutic insight, and rich Bible teaching coming out of more than 1,000 hours of theological study, Lysa will help you:

• Learn how to move on when the other person refuses to change and never says they’re sorry.
• Walk through a step-by-step process to free yourself from the hurt of your past and feel less offended today.
• Discover what the Bible really says about forgiveness and the peace that comes from living it out right now.
• Identify what’s stealing trust and vulnerability from your relationships so you can believe there is still good ahead.
• Disempower the triggers hijacking your emotions by embracing the two necessary parts of forgiveness.

Whether your pain stems from betrayal, abandonment, or any of a hundred ways people hurt each other (or themselves), this is a book for you. For me. For times such as these.

Fly by after you ingest it, will you? I’ll wave at you with joy.

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I’d love to send you a hardcover copy of Forgiving What You Can’t Forget in this week’s GIVEAWAY. Subscribers to my Saturday Letters (not found anywhere online) are automatically entered. If you’d like to join us, drop me a note here: cherylbostrom.com/contact/ and I’ll add your name to my Saturday Letters hat!

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In other news, Tyndale House, my novel Sugar Birds‘ new home, will release the book’s NEW COVER next week—in advance of the story’s relaunch under the Tyndale House imprint. I’m so delighted that they licensed the same photo, and, as we hoped, the front cover is almost identical! You’re the first to see it before it officially goes public!

Also . . . CONGRATULATIONS to the WINNERS of our Valentine week’s FOR THE LOVE OF BOOKS GIVEAWAY!

Prize # 1 ($400 Amazon GIFT CARD): Kim Rosso

Prize #2 (A BUNDLE of BOOKS): Becky Lewis

Prize #3 (Booklover’s ACCESSORY BUNDLE): Penny LeBaron

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And, as always, photos and thoughts for your imagination and soul:

Age 10, you race into the house for a glass of water, and you leave the door open. Again. Your mother’s voice finds you: “Born in a barn?”

“Yes!” you shout, pretending. Wishing you’d been born in a haymow nest with them, seven weeks earlier.

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When you mud-wrestle breakfast.
.
Down by the pond last Sunday. 39 degrees. Pelting rain.

Baldies.

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🎶 Morning by morning, new mercies I see. . . ” 🎶

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Settled.

“No longer . . . like children . . . tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching.”

—Ephesians 4:14

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When your future floats in.

“In the end I will turn things around for the people.”

—Zephaniah 3:9 MSG

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So many pipes.

(Trumpeter swans, Dungeness Valley, WA)

“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
    burst into jubilant song with music;
make music to the Lord with the harp,
    with the harp and the sound of singing,
with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
    shout for joy before the Lord, the King.”

—Psalm 98:4-6

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Amen.

“Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear.”

—Isaiah 58:8

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Now, from a few years back . . .

Cinnamon blanket.

“He will cover you . . . “

—Psalm 91:4

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Wrap in ice, apply gauze, and wait.

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I’m memorizing your talking clouds and you, warm sea.

Carrying you home, warm land.

To keep for a snowy day.

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Thanks for stopping by, friends. So glad you’re here.

Watching Nature, Seeing Life: Through His Creation, God Speaks.