If just ONE more thing happens, I swear I’m gonna lose it.
*One more thing happens.*
Okay, maybe I can get through this and it’ll be okay. As long as nothing ELSE happens.
*Something else happens.* 😂
Lord, did you hear me? I’m gonna lose it. For real. You have to stop letting things happen. No more. I can’t handle anything else. Please.
*Another thing happens.* 💣
Have you ever felt like that?
Have you ever felt like you were just in the midst of everything going wrong all the time? Just POUNDED, one thing after another and you don’t know why?
You cry out but nothing seems to happen. You’re just STUCK.
I have.
I think if we’re honest, we all have.
Life can be cruel, and people…crueler.
I found myself in this situation recently.
No matter how hard I tried, no matter how hard I struggled to plant my feet steady on the ground, I was constantly attacked, constantly maligned, constantly hurt and betrayed. I wanted to give up so bad. Yet God wouldn’t let me so it FELT LIKE He was torturing me. Sit here in this mess, I won’t save you, but sit here, and go through this torture.
Why would God do this? Why would He allow all this bad stuff to happen?
I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t even begin to fathom why. Isaiah 55:8-9
And because of that, I got mad at God. I got angry. I got bitter. I started saying to myself, “You know, if HE’S not gonna take care of me, *I* have to take care of me”.
I became like poison to everyone around me.
I was negative, always moody, and the slightest little hinderance set me off to a mood like no other.
I felt JUSTIFIED in my anger. “I’m right and the whole world is wrong,” I thought.
Somehow, through God’s grace, I started seeing just how far I’d gotten. The desire to serve others is SOOOOO strong to me. I feel like if I can’t serve others, I might as well die. Stick a fork in me, I’m done. I feel useless if I’m not serving. But suddenly, the desire to serve was GONE! 😮
That’s when I knew something was wrong.
*I* wanted to be served. I fought for MY rights. In my mind, I condemned anyone who didn’t think I was amazing. I was so far gone in my sin that I didn’t even care I was in such massive sin. I felt justified in it.
And I was. I WAS right and they WERE wrong. They WERE sinning and I WAS righteous. But in my sin, I became UNrighteous!
Through God’s grace I started seeing myself how I really was. I started seeing how bitter and angry and frustrated I was.
WHY was I treating some stranger meanly that day, snapping at her on the phone????
That’s not like me. I’m always so kind and sweet. But I was brash and cold.
I didn’t LIKE who I was. And once I saw it, I started praying immediately.
I remember listening to a sermon and in it, they started talking about forgiveness.
Oh, even the mere mention of the WORD: forgiveness, made my blood boil.
“I WON’T forgive them!!!” I said.
But as I started thinking about it, I felt so trapped.
Trapped by my own anger. Trapped by bitterness. Trapped by negative thinking. Trapped by SIN.
And so, my heart was softened about it all and I started praying, genuinely…
“Lord, I cannot save myself. I cannot forgive them. I’m right to feel hurt and betrayed, what they did was WRONG. It was. You can’t deny it’s wrong Lord, but I don’t want to live here. I don’t want to take up residency in my bitterness. I see it’s taking me somewhere I don’t wanna go! But I also know I can’t save myself. I can’t do this on my own. I can’t help myself. I can’t snap myself out of it. I need your help.”
Within a couple days, He convicted me He would take away my unforgiving heart and He did. It was instantaneously gone.
It was…a miracle. The first of many just like this!
All the sudden I forgave them and I felt like a massively huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt like I could BREATHE again.
And I questioned myself…am I not bitter anymore too? Did that cure it?
But something else happened and again, I mistreated a stranger. Another company who was fighting me and I spoke unkindly to them in a “gruff” way.
The bitterness was still there. Yes, I forgave THOSE people, but I still had pent up frustration for, well, EVERYONE. 😥
I thought to myself, “If it worked the first time, it can work again.” So I prayed again…
“Lord, I am just so bitter. Take my unholy, wicked heart and help me. I know that I CANNOT do this on my own. I’m so angry, so bitter and I want to stop, but I feel trapped, like I can’t stop. I’m surrounded by evil hearts, people trying to destroy me and take me down. People who are trying to make me sin or make me in a bad mood and I can’t get through this on my own. I can’t do this on my own. You have to help. Because I don’t want to be bitter anymore.”
I meant every word of that prayer. Every syllable.
And that day, not even 24 hours later, God uprooted the bitterness out of my heart and washed me clean. 😮
As life would have it, two people attacked me that next day, and I just let it slide right off my back. It didn’t even bother me like it would have before when I was bitter.
👉 That’s the power of God. 💎🙌👏🎁
Listen, He WANTS to save us. He WANTS to help us and grow us into the godly people He desires us to be. But we don’t have to do it ALL!
We have to do OUR part. But we do not have to do it all. It reminds me of the prodigal son.
The prodigal son didn’t knock on his father’s door. He didn’t even have to get that far, before you see the father RUNNING out to see him. The father was LOOKING for the son. He was WAITING for the son and the milisecond he saw him, he ran to him.
I feel like that’s what God does with us. He wants us to come to Him. He’s not gonna force us, but He will put things in our lives, stumbling blocks to get us to come back to Him and the second He sees we are genuinely repentant, He will do the rest!
He loves us so much, my friends. He died for you. He is emphatically in LOVE with you! 💖 And you don’t have to do it all on your own. He will come and take your mess, your broken heart, your hurts, your feelings of betrayal and bitterness and strife and make you clean…if you’ll let Him.
My question today is will you let Him? Do you TRULY want to stop being bitter? If you do, ask Him to help you. If you genuinely mean it, He will do this thing for His children. He loves you.
Go to Him today. Tell Him you want to be set free of this jail you’ve gotten yourself in and can’t get out. It wasn’t accident you came by this post. Of all the billions of posts online, you read this one. HE brought you here. He wants to help! He’s calling out to you!!
Your pain is great and He understands that, but His healing is greater than your pain!
He is bigger than all of your problems put together. All of the whole WORLD’S problems put together! He’s God. You trusted Him with your life, you can trust Him to heal your pain and bitterness too! 💖💯💎🙏
