Roots of Bitterness

As I mentioned in my first blog post, last year was difficult. What I didn’t mention was that I did not handle it gracefully. In fact, I failed spectacularly.

When I was sick with strep the first time, Mr. Multicolored was in so much pain from his own health struggles that he couldn’t even walk, so I had no choice but to keep pushing through even though I desperately needed my own recovery time.

I wasn’t happy about it—quite honestly, I was downright bitter. But I knew I shouldn’t be upset because, well, sometimes our circumstances just stink. I told myself to put on my big girl panties and deal with it. So I brushed my feelings aside and assumed that I was over it once we were through that patch.

But then…the second round of strep hit, and almost immediately Mr. Multicolored had his surgery. I was left once again holding the caregiver reins instead of having someone caring for me. The bitterness I thought I had let go of grew and got uglier.

The problem was that rather than dealing with my bitter feelings, I had simply buried them. What happens to seeds that you bury? It seems pretty obvious, but I’ll say it anyway—buried seeds don’t go away, they grow (assuming you provide them with nutrients for growth, which I can assure you I did!). My buried bitterness burst forth in all its ugliness and nearly consumed me.

Bitterness can be sharp in taste, but it can also be the absence of flavor. Over time I began to notice the flavor had faded from my days. Things that had previously brought me joy felt flat. I was exhausted all the time. I felt numb to life. I attributed it to stress but, in truth, it was the festering bitterness. It was the repeated silent litany of how I deserved to be taken care of, how I shouldn’t have to be doing all the things I was doing, how it just wasn’t fair. It was sucking the joy right out of my life.

Something I came to realize is that when you’re bitter against your circumstances—when there’s no one you can actually be angry with, when the things that are happening are nobody’s fault—doesn’t that ultimately mean you’re bitter against God? For me, at least, this is exactly what happened. And what good does it do to be bitter against the only One Who can actually help us through it all?

Hebrews 12:15b says, “Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.” The words “watch out” tell me that this is something we must be alert to. We have to be so careful with bitterness. It’s such an easy thing to fall prey to. Even after learning such a hard lesson, I’ve caught myself time and again slipping down the path into bitterness before I even realized where I was headed. It requires constant vigilance.

We can’t embrace God, or be embraced by Him, if we continue to cling to our anger and bitterness. Don’t let bitterness steal away your life! Let it go. Only when we turn away from the things holding us captive can we finally turn toward God and His tender mercies.