Bitterness

Ephesians 4:31-32

English Standard Version (ESV)

31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

(In case you can't tell, I used this photo to represent BITTER cold.)

 If I said the word "bitterness" to you, what comes to mind?  A food? Maybe a person? Have you ever talked with someone and found yourself thinking they were very bitter? I've experienced that from time to time. Sometimes I meet someone and within minutes, their bitterness oozes out and sometimes a bit of it gets on me. It makes me want to go wash it off. It makes me want to get far away from that person.

When I went online to find a definition of that word I first found, as you would expect, a reference to taste. The second definition, though, referred to feelings. Words associated with bitterness were:

anger

disappointment

resentment

Those are not very positive words, are they? However, we all have those feelings from time to time I suppose. Does that mean we are bitter people? 

I'm not sure why but that word has come to my mind on several occasions lately. Something I've noticed is that most of us have trouble avoiding bitterness.  Do you think it is associated with a mentality of victimization? Do you know what I mean? We all have things in our past that we could latch onto to feel we were victimized in some way. We've all experienced times of being treated unfairly. I think it is our response to those experiences that determine whether or not we are going to become bitter.

I don't even know why I am writing about this. I don't have much of a psych background. Sure, we had to do some of that in nursing school but truthfully, I wasn't that good at the psych stuff. Also, I don't remember ever learning about bitterness and its effect on people during those class discussions. So, I hope you aren't looking for any insightful answers here. There you go. That is my little disclaimer.

The only thing I'm thinking is that there is a strong link between bitterness and the lack of forgiveness. Think about it and tell me if you agree. When I tried to examine things from my past that left me feeling angry or resentful, I noticed that there were a few feelings of bitterness that still popped up. There were maybe some people I needed to forgive. Ouch! I wanted to think about bitterness in others, not myself! 

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I have a few things to work on. I'm still nurturing several areas of bitterness. Did I say "nurturing"? Yep. I realized that I kind of wanted to keep those things on a nearby shelf, so to speak, so that I could pull them out and dwell on them when I wanted to have a pity party or just enjoy a good "mad". I may even want to pull them off the shelf to use as an excuse for my own behavior sometime. Oh come on! You do things like that, don't you? I'm not the only one, am I?

Here's what I know, though. Bitterness leaves a terrible taste in your mouth. Bitterness spreads to others. Bitterness can be neutralized when sprinkled with sugar. Maybe forgiveness is the sugar. Oh, hey, that sounds kind of insightful, doesn't it? I'm so proud of it, I will say it again...

Forgiveness is the sugar.

       

Healing Bitterness

Well, I decided this post was worth the effort to re-write it. I'm trying to let go of my bitterness toward BLOGGER for losing my post yesterday.

I am enjoying Bible Study with some friends on Monday nights. This week we talked of many things, including God as healer. I liked that! Maybe because I am a nurse, I don't know, but I really like to think of God as a healer.

It is easy to think of healing in regards to disease and injury. Something discussed Monday night, though, was our need for healing of bitterness.  Yes, bitterness. Of course I first started thinking of people I know who seem really bitter. It's always easier to see what is wrong with someone else, huh? The trust is, though, most of us have something that can makes us feel bitter.

Often people who are bitter about something don't realize it or wouldn't call it bitterness. Can you think of anything about which you might be retaining some bitterness? If you can identify something about which you are bitter, you have likely found something for which you need to consider offering forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a tricky thing. Sometimes we want to hold on to our pain, including our bitterness. Sometimes we want to wallow in it, huh? Eventually, though, it starts to smell bad, so to speak. In fact, one of the things we read was bitterness is like a cancer. It can grow and spread until you don't really even remember where it all began. 

So, how to wash yourself clean of bitterness? As I said, forgiveness is usually the ticket. God shows us forgiveness; we need to pass that on. Another tricky thing about forgiveness, though, is that we may worry about what message we are sending. Sometimes our bitterness is based on something really seriously bad that someone did to us. Does offering forgiveness mean to say that the wrong done to you was really ok? Nope. Forgiving and letting go of bitterness is not about saying a wrong is ok, it is about saying YOU are ok. It is to say you wish to quit allowing the wrong thing to keep hurting you. You want to be rid of it. You want to be healed of it.

OK, that is one of the things we talked about and I really wanted to share it. Now, I have. I feel better.

Bitter About Bitterness

So, here is the deal...

I wrote a post for today titled "Healing Bitterness". Doesn't that sound intersting? However, I did it from my phone and when I sent it to publish, it got stuck. AAAAAAAAALLLLL day long it keeps saying "publishing" but it never really did that. It is stuck. I can't access the post at all from my phone nor from my computer.

Perhaps I will rewrite it. Right now, I feel bitter about it and I'm going to wallow in that bitterness for awhile.

Sorry.

Gate to Freedom

 I just love the following quote...

“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”

Nelson Mandela