Have you ever been hurt deeply , but refused to share with anyone, to open up, even to tell God about your pain? ( I mean we know HE already knows, but to admit it, to say it out loud or even release it feels wrong) Maybe you are ashamed of your actions that led to the hurt. Or maybe you feel silly for allowing someone else’s words or actions to hurt you so deeply, because you feel like you should be stronger than that. Maybe you just despise the drama of it all and the last thing you want is to cause more of it, so instead you keep it pinned up inside, trying not to be a burden to God or anyone else for that matter. Whatever the reason, I’m sure you thought it was the best decision at the time, to hide it and deal with it later, or just not deal with it at all. I know, because I have been there and it almost destroyed the very person I am at heart.
What happens when you are hurt deeply and you refuse to deal with that pain? A tiny seed of resentment is planted and with time and continued exposure that seed grows into an overtaking vine of bitterness before you even know it. Oh you had all great intentions. You told yourself that you were actually the bigger person, the mature one, the one capable of taking the higher road, by ignoring it, stuffing it down, and trying not to spend another second on it…..all the while, it was destroying you from the inside out. Robbing you of joy and freedom in your everyday life and experiences. Maybe you told yourself , trying desperately to convince yourself, that it was “you” or “shouldn’t be a big deal. You should be able to take this and move on, but see this is yet another deflection of pain. Instead of acknowledging, right or wrong, that you were hurt and accepting that fact, you have tried to excuse it away. In turn, you never dealt with the hurt and as much as I’d like to tell you, with time it will just go away, that’s the farthest thing from the truth.
Bitterness is something that is hard to come to terms with. It’s hard to accept that you have allowed it, but once it has seeded itself in your life, you must recognize it and deal with it. It takes letting go of pride to admit that you allowed bitterness to grow. That is a hard first step, because admitting that you allowed bitterness to take over any part of your life makes you feel like a “bad person”, an “ugly person”, maybe even “the problem”. So let me share a piece of truth I heard once at a women’s conference. Bitterness is a tool of the enemy and it often takes advantage of the most tender hearted people. I don’t know about you, but that made it easier for me to face. Acknowledging that maybe because I am tenderhearted, I do love people, I am a recovering people pleaser, and I never want to be the problem, but the problem solver might be the very reasons that I fell into this trap in the first place. I seriously thought I was handling it the best way possible by pretending like everything was fine and moving forward, not realizing the heavy baggage I was dragging with me. Bitterness is unfair, but then again, it’s a tool of the enemy, so OF COURSE it’s unfair. It doesn’t have mercy on the weak, grieving, or heavy laden. In fact, it preys on them. It’s often when you are already in an unbearable season of life that bitterness’ co-conspirator, HURT, takes advantage of your already raw and bleeding heart. And the irony is it’s often people close to you, that may or may not ever acknowledge or apologize for the pain they have caused you. Of course, everything hurts even more when you’re already hurting. Why do you think we have the phrases like “don’t pour salt into the wound” or “ no need to kick him while he’s down”. The fact that you were already hurting and more vulnerable to further hurt, isn’t the other person’s fault, but it’s not yours either. This is something that took me a long time to accept. I excused the hurt with the fact that I was already in a difficult place, or perhaps it wouldn’t have affected me like it did. I was ashamed to even admit that it had. It must be my fault. If you can relate to any of this, read on.
My best recommendation is to deal with the pain right away, before bitterness has time to take hold. You see, bitterness is the result of hurt, inability to forgive and time. Together, these three ingredients breed bitterness. The most outrageous part is that it rarely even affects the person or situation that caused the initial pain to you in the first place, but it can destroy your life and your relationships moving forward. Did I mention how unfair it was? Bitterness is straight from Satan, the deceiver himself. He is a master manipulator.
I wish I couldn’t speak to this so clearly. I wish I had never let bitterness take hold in my life, but the truth is, I can speak so intimately of this because I’ve walked it and until now I really never intended to admit it to anyone outside of God and my husband.
Oh BUT GOD, He’s been working on me for a while to share this, so I can only imagine that someone else needs to hear it.
So what do you do if you ended up in my shoes? What if you didn’t deal with the pain right away? What if you are just realizing that it’s been controlling you, your decisions, your actions, and even your relationships?
Well friend, I’ve got GREAT news for you. While you may never receive an acknowledgement or apology from the person(s) that so deeply hurt you, the good news is you don’t have to. Stop waiting for the acknowledgement and apology. Stop expecting it. If it hasn’t happened by now, it’s probably never going to, and you don’t need it to move forward. You have never been and will never be able to control other people. The harsh truth is while you have been torn up about it, they likely haven’t given it another thought and are out there living their best life…..so why shouldn’t you? You should!
The only person you can control is YOU. First you have to wake up and acknowledge it. For me, it took a lot of reading God’s word and hearing the truth preached and shared on this topic before my heart really even recognized that my problem had a name and it was called bitterness. So drop the pride, search your heart, and ask God to show you. He will.
The Bible says in Ephesians 4:31-32 KJV. “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
So can you guess what the next step is once you have acknowledged it and named it? Yep! Forgiveness!! Ouch….I know….I imagine several of you may be thinking “Erin, how can I forgive them when they haven’t even apologized?”. We often have this picture in our head of when we are kids and forgiveness is something that has to be requested from one to the other to work, but that’s not actually true at all. Does is make it easier to think of it this way? Forgiveness = Freedom. We should forgive others as Christ forgives us because He commands us to, regardless of whether or not we “feel like they deserve it”. We didn’t deserve the Father’s forgiveness. Does that mean it’s easy? Nope! But forgiveness is the very thing that sets you free from the bondage of bitterness and it’s hold on your joy, relationships and so much more. So while it’s not easy, it’s so worth it!!
The truth is you can practice forgiveness without ever receiving an apology or acknowledgment of wrongdoing. You forgive by faith, not feelings. The quicker you can do it, the better. I promise you that. You will feel an enormous weight lift from your life. You were not meant to carry that alone. Our Heavenly Father wants to carry it for us. That means, if you are in a situation that the hurt is ongoing, you will need to practice forgiveness of every hurt, every time, but you no longer need to wait for them to acknowledge it. You don’t need the other person’s participation to forgive them. It just requires you and God and THAT is an incredible relief to me. I hope it is to you as well.
Now comes the elephant in the room. We know that God forgives and forgets……..but we aren’t God. Even when we get incredibly comfortable with the art of forgiveness we won’t always forget the pain that was inflicted, especially if it’s continual. So, what do you do?
You give it to God. You pray when it comes up and all of those past feelings of hurt are triggered. You set healthy boundaries, and you ask God to help you do that. AND you pray for the other person, as often as you think of it. Youch! I know…again… this is hard stuff. You don’t have to be perfect at it. You just need to lean on the One that is. God knows we aren’t going to be perfect. He just wants us to give it to Him. He wants to take it from us and replace it with HIS peace that surpasses all understanding and HIS joy that is incomprehensible in any situation. So today, if you’ve been hanging on to past hurt, thinking you’ve got it managed and under control, think again! The enemy has you exactly where he wants you. He doesn’t want you to allow God to lift that heavy burden and give you rest. Forgiveness = Freedom. I pray you give it all to Him today and learn from my mistakes before bitterness has entangled and tainted every part of your life. You deserve MORE.
Photo Credit: His Creations Photography by Paige Yawson
http://hiscreationsphotography.mypixieset.com/
