“It is a simple but sometimes forgotten truth that the greatest enemy to present joy and high hopes is the cultivation of retrospective bitterness." - Robert G. Menzies
Earlier this week, on Sunday, my husband, sister, and I went to a night service here in town. We happened to be a half hour late because of a misunderstanding about when it actually started. However, I can't help but feel that maybe it was fate (AKA God) that brought us in when it did. We walked into the atrium of the church and a man sitting there (one of the associate pastors) explained that church times had changed and that service had already begun. For those of you who don't know me, I hate to be late and things like patience are not my forte. I was miffed to say the very least. Despite my great desire to turn around and just go home, Robert dragged us towards the doors leading inside the sanctuary. Right outside the door was a large bowl filled with a variety of rocks in all shapes and sizes. The sign above the bowl said, "take one," and so we did. We walked in (with more noise than I would have cared for) and found a seat in back (though not as far back as I would have liked...so as to avoid stares of course).
We settled in and I took out my notebook to take notes on whatever remnant of the message we might catch. I sat back and finally looked up towards the speaker...or speakers as was the case this time. A man and a woman I'd never seen were standing on the stage with a white board between them. It seemed odd to me at first, since I was expecting a preacher, but I sat back and tuned in and heard something so simple yet, for me, so necessary. It seemed almost as if they were waiting until the moment we entered to really begin to deliver the message they had come to share. They began, rather they continued, with this quote:
"Bitterness is like swallowing a deadly poison and expecting the other person to die."It just doesn't happen that way. As they continued, I caught on to the fact that this couple was sharing their testimony. Though I didn't get all of the facts, the gist was that this couple and their children had moved about ten times in thirteen months and she, we'll call her Jane, was "wounded" by this. I say wounded because it was the word they used to describe a hurt inflicted that can begin a never ending cycle. This wound led to many other emotions that caused Jane and her husband, we'll call him Jake, to become distant with each other. This distance eventually led to Jake having an affair with Jane's best friend. Personally, I can't even begin to imagine the pain and hurt that Jane felt. I have no frame of reference that covers that sort of emotional distress.
Jane continued to explain that her bitterness was a result of a wound that had been caused by Jake and the moves and his affair. She said that it started as this wound and began to fester until it became grief or sorrow. She was grieving because of what he and her best friend had done to her. She was grieving because she was (she thought) losing all that she'd come to hold dear to her: her family, her husband, her best friend, their church family, everything. Then, she said, it became anger. She was angry at him for all of the moves the past year. She was tired of dragging her kids from one place to another, uprooting from friends and places she'd come to love. She was angry that her best friend had betrayed her with her own husband. She finally admitted that all of these emotions: grief, sadness, and anger all led her down the road to bitterness. This bitterness caused her to harden her heart against her husband, against her best friend, and against God. This bitterness took up roots in her heart and began to grow and grow because she fed it daily thinking of all that had happened to her and, in her own words, "where resentment lives, intimacy begins to die."
It stayed this way for a while...until God got a hold of her again. Jane did not go into great detail about exactly how God brought her back to Himself...but does she need to? Who can explain the ways of God? No one. Jane said her heart was changed and she was able to come to the conclusion that she needed to forgive. She mentioned that she had avoided it for so long because she felt what we all think about forgiveness sometimes; that if we forgive, the other person gets away with whatever they did. We think that they win. We feel that if we forgive, somehow we are weak and that, by holding all this in, we are punishing them. But, it's like that quote said, it's not hurting that other person, it's simply killing us! She knew she needed to forgive her husband for moving them all those times. She needed to forgive him for having the affair. She needed to forgive her best friend for participating. So, she worked on it and they had counselling. She said she reached a point where she sat down and wrote a long letter to her friend, saying that she forgave her and even asking for forgiveness herself for the anger and bitterness. Then, she waited...and waited...and waited.
She explained then that she became angry at her best friend for a second time. She, Jane, had gone out on a limb and given an olive branch. She had extended precious forgiveness and what did she get? Silence. Nothing. Nada. How dare she? How dare her best friend ignore her? How dare she not respond with gratitude at what Jane had done? Jane said that she was angry and bitter all over again because she hadn't fully comprehended the whole truth about forgiveness. The fact that forgiveness can only be true forgiveness when you expect nothing in return for it. She said specifically that, "forgiveness is only true forgiveness when we forgive regardless of the response." She also explained that she came to understand that when we do forgive, it's not that the other person wins, it's that Christ wins. We don't forgive seven times seventy for the offenders' sake, we forgive him for our sake; so that the poison doesn't consume and destroy us. Jane later explained that the rocks we picked up on our way, contrary to what we probably thought, were really not to stone Jake with. They were there to demonstrate that even though we want to put the name of our offender on that rock and throw it, that it is always better to simply decide to drop it. Holding on to that rock can be heavy and if we add more and more rocks to our already heavy burden we'll buckle under the weight. It's so much easier to simply let go...and let God.
Okay. So what does all of this have to do with my life? Well, honestly, because bitterness has been my constant companion for quite some time. In some cases, I knew it was there living inside me. In others, I wasn't aware of just how heavy it was or how much it was weighing me down. This message really helped me to see and understand some things that I had heard previously. I know what forgiveness is. I understand it. I know that we are called by God in Matthew 18:22 to forgive seventy times seven. But, for me, its difficult because I am like Jane. I am like most of you and I have a hard time forgiving when I think they will get away with what they've done. I feel like, if I let it go, no one will remember and it will all be swept under the rug and I just can't let that happen. God says, however, in Romans 12:19, that vengeance is His and that He will repay. So, if we trust in God to save our souls can we not trust Him to avenge us? His children? His heirs? He feeds the sparrows, clothes the Lilly and does abundantly more than that for us; can we not trust Him to right the wrongs against us? Of course we can. So why don't we?
I pray that you, like me, will consider this question and how it affects your own life. I have many things to think over. I have forgiveness to offer and forgiveness to beg for; from God and from others. I hope that if you have things in your life that you are holding on to, that you will simply let them go and let God, the Creator of heaven and earth, take care of it for you. He will...He says He will. The way we act is like having someone email us and say "the cure to cancer is on the second floor in a file if you want it" and then not ever going down there to get it. God will take care of it! We just need to let him.
**A Good song to check out is Chris Augusts' "7x70"**
