Bitter...or Better?

“Be bitter or get better.”

These were the words that kept haunting me after she shared the testimony.
(I wonder if she realized how the words would be used by God?!)
I could allow my heart to harden (a very natural, easy process I knew) or I could resist.
I could reject this poisoned thinking my heart so readily would embrace.
In God’s grace, I knew this was a battle for my heart, of my affection for and trust in God.

Oh, the temptation was so appealing!
I didn’t think “it” fair. I knew I’d been wronged. I believed I had an airtight case that any jury would rule in my favor (in this hypothetical court of rights & wrongs).
And I was so hurt by it all. The misery was intense.
I had a ‘right’ to nurse my offense.

“Be bitter or get better.”

I also knew the high price of unforgiveness. The awful, ravaging effects of not letting go, of not giving to God all my ‘rights’. Of refusing to trust Him in this.
I’d seen in others the chains of bondage that bitterness produces.
The infiltrating impact it brings to all of one’s life if allowed to take root.
The unhappiness, the toll it makes its possessor pay, the thief of joy it is.
And how it blinds its prisoner to the cruelty of its containment, for release is the key held in his own hand, unused: forgiveness!

“Be bitter or get better.”

“Oh, God”, I cry, “I want to get better.”
To rest in fellowship with you, to let go of my hurt and another’s transgression.
But it seems insurmountable. I need your help.
I need your grace, your Spirit’s power, your balm for my hurting soul.
Help me take the first step and proceed forward.
To get better.

I may not understand. I may not see ‘justice’. I may not be able to right the wrong.
But you do. You can. You will.
Restore to me a soft heart of openness.
I will trust in You.
...And get “better”.