Bitterness kills.

I want to express and confess that not too long ago I was bitter. I was bitter about what seemed like a thousand things. And it wasn't a healthy kind of bitterness either. You know? The one that good things come out of and you grow and become a better, more curious person who can do better, more curious things. It was nothing like that. It was just pure bitterness that didn't even bother to bloom slowly in my heart, it simply snapped and burst.
It took over.
It is extremely hard for me to understand myself. I am an eclectic medley. I am a parcel, a package, a potpourri of persons. I am a mosaic. Well, at least my soul is.
Sometimes I can't remember who I'm supposed to be.
My soul can't do that. When I'm in a chair singing worship and actually standing and actually closing my eyes and actually lifting my hands and actually singing as loud as I can and I actually really want to cower and sit on my fingers. When I see pictures of youth groups and college groups and people my age in Mexico and Honduras and Dominican Republic and Peru on mission trips to hold orphans and build houses. When I hear my Pastor say things that still in the back of my mind my head registers as "scandalous." When I feel uncomfortable that people are praying out loud instead of sitting silently in their chairs pretending to do so. When I recognize that there is no way in the entire world that I will be able to attend a church that is mainly built of young people because I am too distracted by everything about them and too flutter-brained and wonder-headed over their obvious devotion to my same Carpenter.
I grew up in a church that is very unlike my new church. And it plagues me. And I was very bitter about it very suddenly and very unexpectedly.
But.
I love that word. But.
But I am letting it go.
Because even though I think I may be more deserving or fantastic or even though I believe that I am fearfully and wonderfully made,
I am not amazing. I am a sinner, and my bent is hell.
Which is why I choose forgiveness and growth and life.
I missed out on a lot of things. Good things. And I have experienced a whole lot of judgement and ridiculousness and pressure and I have been an empty, dry vessel, but. But I am who I am for a reason that I have yet to understand and I choose to hold myself to a standard of grace and not perfection.


Luke 6
36Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. 37Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven