As we live with one another in our families and in community, we receive all the blessings that come to us from other people. We also receive all the temptations that arise from living in community.
These temptations can be filed under grudges, hurts, offenses, bitterness, resentment, peeves, exasperations, and more. But in the name of getting back at others, we only hurt ourselves. A wise person once said that giving way to bitterness is like eating a box of rat poison, and then waiting for the rat to die.
We often assume that we can’t be bitter because the person we are bitter against is close to us, dear to us, and all tangled up with us. But this just makes bitterness complicated, not nonexistent. Human emotions, including the sinful ones, are complex, not simple.
Someone else has defined home as that place where, if you go, they have to take you in. But this often leads to presumption. And the tighter the family, the greater the presumption can be. The closer the knit, the closer the knots.
We have just finished celebrating a joyful family time together. We have also cleaned up the mess, hauled off the boxes, and washed all the dishes. What better time to do the same with our resentments? Pack them off, take them away . . . time to be done with them.
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