I secretly tend toward bitterness. And I’ve come to realize that it’s actually born of unforgiveness. I hate admitting this out loud because forgiveness feels like the most elementary of basic faith practices. We teach it to our kids as toddlers. It feels like something I should check off the list of mastery by now. Yet here I am, fighting bitterness, much more often than I’d like to admit. I mean multiple times a day.

When I react defensively, bitterness.
When I assume the worst about people, bitterness.
When I complain and criticize, bitterness.
When I avoid people and feelings, bitterness.
When I hunker down in isolation, bitterness.
When I want justice more than forgiveness, bitterness.

It’s easier to villainize people who cut me deeply than it is to admit how carrying around the hurt from their wounds is changing me at the deepest level.

In yesterday’s Easter message, my Pastor Naeem Fazal asked what stones of unforgiveness we were carrying around. I thought about everyone else sitting in that room and the people they needed to forgive - until he put his stone in his pocket and said “I’m fine! I’m not holding anything!” and felt the weight of my own hypocritical pockets.

While God has helped me shrink a lot of hurt, a pocketful of pebbles can still weigh you down.

He challenged us to face the stones of unforgiveness we’re carrying so they don’t become doors that lock us in our own graves.

This is not the person I want to be, even secretly. A bitter person is the complete opposite of who I know God created me to be. So while Naeem directed us to roll our stones away and leave them behind, I’m keeping mine.

Because I still see names all over it. Because I need the visual reminder every day that I can either carry around the weight of people who hurt me and let it turn me into someone weighed down by bitterness or I can daily roll it away to let Jesus enter in and save me.

You are forgiven, friend. Of everything you’ve done, are doing and will do in the future.

P.S. I just told God, admitting this publicly hurts. But He said it will hurt more if I don’t. Gah, there’s nothing like tears with your morning coffee.