When did bitterness start for me? When did I become enwrapped in its tentacles? When did it start for you?
A person that I was "counting on" being perfect for me, became less than perfect in the way that I needed them to be perfect. I became shocked, angry, self-righteous, "holier than thou", demanding, judgmental, challenging, looking for other wrongs, unhappy. I cried an awful lot. I talked to many people, trying to get this wrong righted. Nothing worked. I was bitter....plain bitter and really nothing was going to change this unless this person showed themselves perfect again.
People that I respected and admired told me that I just needed to "let the bitterness and anger go".
They told me that the bitterness would destroy me and wouldn't solve anything. Yes, they were right. The bitterness would begin to destroy me and wouldn't solve anything. I would think..."oh, if only I could be holier and just 'let it go; if only I could be more forgiving; if only I could just stop being angry." But it was impossible for me to let it go, and to tell you the truth, I didn't want to let it go. The anger and bitterness held things "in place" for me.
The journey I took to get "free" was much better than just "letting it go". God wanted to do a much deeper work in my soul and He had so much more happiness for me than just stuffing the bitterness somewhere deep inside of me, and just "hoping" that it wouldn't rear its head when something or someone "similar" came on the scene.
Does your bitterness hold your world together?
Are you afraid, like me, that to let bitterness go would mean giving up a "just grudge"... or risking being shockingly hurt again, traumatized , disillusioned, taken advantage of... or that God would take another loved one away from you... or that you will be abused again, abandoned, taken for granted, neglected, or that you'll be left all alone...Or that the anger and frustration and fear underneath would be too big for even God to handle?
Lent isn't just a time of looking at our sins to see how bad we are in comparison to an all -loving God who died on the cross for us.
Lent is a time of taking a good look at our sins, our failures, our weaknesses, AND the defense mechanisms that we have put in to place to cover the places in our hearts that hurt so badly...so that God can accompany us to those areas of pain that hold the lies we believed about ourselves when something bad happened to us; ... so that we can talk to Him about how He sees us and invite Him to touch us with His love.
When we hear his voice, our minds and hearts will catch on fire and they'll be no stopping us in moving forward with our lives. Lent is a beautiful love story between you and your creator...between you and your savior.
Don't let your bitterness just "go" to some subconscious level. Draw near to God and He will draw near to You.
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