When life doesn't happen as we would have hoped, there are several ways we might deal with the disappointment.
We can let it not phase us, accepting that life is full of ups and downs and so move on (I wonder if those who live in third-world countries accept disappointments easier than us because they've factored sorrow into their reality since birth.).
We can let ourselves fully grieve while leaning into God all the harder, like a wife might lean into her husband for extra strength, and so, hopefully, come out having known sorrow, but healed.
Or we can grieve while allowing cynicism, bitterness, and a general hardness to protect our still vulnerable insides. In such a case, the grieving never really ends, healing never really comes. Sometimes we call women who have been through hard life experiences and come out independent and capable as "strong" women. But every once in awhile their words betray that they have never really recovered and that they are still bitter.
I don't want to be that kind of strong woman. That is one reason why I've been thinking and writing about bitterness a lot lately.
Another reason is that I've seen how the amount of bitterness I have allowed in my own life is hurting my relationship with God and thus affecting how I live my life.
The other reason why I write about bitterness is because I find it fascinating. Bitterness is sneaky. It's easy for us to catch, hard for us to get rid of. We all are susceptible, and I think most live with some amount of bitterness without ever eradicating it, like living with parasites.
And so I'm obsessively combing through my heart, trying to uncover the bitterness, trying to find its source, trying to figure out the antidote.
I think I've found the antidote too. But I'm still trying to figure out how to apply it to my soul.
"[T]o be bitter is to let go of trust and faith in God. I cannot simultaneously have an uttermost confidence in Him and be bitter . . . ." --April 7, 2013 journal entry
More on that later, Lord-willing....
Great words, Michelle! I know a bit about bitterness, more through the veins of either observing it in others or, more personally, experiencing it's throws in my own life. It really does tear away at the soul...even while it somehow tricks you into thinking that it makes you stronger. Why the "nothing can touch me" mentality is SO appealing to us (at least it is to me!), I don't know...but like you, I DO want to be strong but I don't want to be strong the wrong way.
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