A few Sundays ago, I sat in the church pew, holding the individualized, pre-packaged communion elements we’ve all grown accustomed to over the past year, and listened as one of my pastors fenced the table. Our pastors each do this a little differently, but there’s always a caution and an invitation to the believing as well as a warning to the unbelieving.[1] There’s a moment for heart examination and prayer. That particular Sunday, the pastor asked us to consider if we had bitterness in our hearts, especially towards other believers. My five-year-old son looked up from his notebook and, Crayola marker in hand, asked me what bitterness was.
“Well,” I whispered, “it’s like holding anger in your heart against someone else all the time. It’s always being angry about something someone has done or something that has happened to you.”
He nodded. There was a beat of silence. And then, his eyes serious and wide, he asked, “Do you have bitterness in your heart?”
I swallowed. How do I explain to a five-year-old the complexities of fighting against sin, sometimes finding victory and sometimes failing miserably, of confession every morning and repentance every night, of trying to forgive what you just can’t seem to forget?
“Sometimes I do,” I responded.
He nodded and went back to his drawing. I gripped the communion cup a little harder, pricked by his question. Sometimes I do have bitterness in my heart.
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I recently bumped into a woman who caused a good deal of pain in my life about a decade ago. Knowing that she might feel uncomfortable and that she might view things the other way around, I smiled brightly and greeted her by name. But our exchange didn’t go as well as I’d have liked for it to and when she walked away, I was rooted to the ground with feelings I thought had long dissipated.
There it was in my chest—a sudden blooming, a spread of heat, a blossom of anger. In a moment, I remembered every moment of pain tethered to the events of our past together. The temptation was sudden, fierce, and firmly attached to my memories: be bitter. You deserve it.
This moment wasn’t about the other woman. It was about me and the sudden awareness of what was blooming in my heart.
Memories are funny things. We compress events together, blur the edges, run a highlighter under what we really don’t want to forget. I’m a careful and thorough journaler. I can remember dialogue with frightening precision and have chronicled every word of every hard conversation of my life in a stack of journals that stands nearly as tall as I am. Unfortunately, some methods of rumination aren’t good for the soul. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to go back over my journals with a black marker, blotting out names so that my future self will have a hard time remembering who said what. Love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs, but sometimes I do. And sometimes I have to blot out the record because bitterness is a willing plant, ever ready to put down deep roots in my heart.
“Do you have bitterness in your heart?”
“Sometimes I do.”
Unlike the finicky fiddle leaf fig tree I bought last March and mothered with tender care before it died a defeated death in August, bitterness doesn’t need my attention to grow. In fact, it thrives while I pretend it isn’t there. In Tennessee where I grew up, there’s a strange kind of ivy called kudzu that grows over trees and brush. Kudzu was brought to the US in 1876 as an ornamental crop that was eventually used to prevent soil erosion. However, kudzu has a kind of cloaking mechanism. It spreads and grows over trees, swallowing everything in its path and giving the landscape a monstrous appearance. Kudzu grows fast, up to a foot per day. And it’s hard to kill, especially once it has grown out of control. While large swaths of land and trees might look interesting covered in the green kudzu leaves, underneath they are dead. Kudzu chokes the life out of the vegetation it covers.
If left untended, bitterness will grow and grow and grow, spreading out its leaves, shooting out roots and vines that dig deep and wrap tightly. The only way to keep yourself free from its insidious spread is to work at regular eradication. Yank those roots up as often as possible. Check for new sources growth and weed it out. Open your Bible each morning with desperation, confess every self-serving thought and longing for vengeance. Repent every time you revisit those conversations. Resist the temptation to rewrite and rehearse the script. Ask the Spirit to mold your heart, bend it towards Christlikeness and away from self-pity or pride. Sit in the pew every Sunday, communion cup in hand, and be honest with yourself and the Lord: do you have bitterness in your heart? Plead for God’s help. Root it out. Sever the sources of light and life to every bitter thought. Bitterness might seem like a quiet weapon to secretly wield against those who hurt us, but the deepest damage occurs in our own hearts before it begins to spread.
The author of Hebrews exhorts us:
“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled” (Heb. 12:14-15).
Perhaps when you’re sitting in the pew and thinking about bitterness, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Or, you walk away from an awkward exchange at the store or the PTA meeting or the coffee shop and you think that as long as you don’t voice your bitter thoughts, it can’t hurt to feed that little fire in your heart for just a moment or two, to revel in what you would have said if given the chance. But, the effects of bitterness are rarely so limited. Bitterness spreads. Quickly. With it, we can turn one against another. It’s not that hard.
“Do you have bitterness in your heart?”
“Sometimes I do.”
And sometimes it spills out of my heart and into my words, my facial expressions, my relationships. It wraps its tendrils around my memories, distorting my recollection of how things went, always painting myself in an innocent light. Bitterness kills.
When the pastor asks us to consider what’s in our heart while our hands hold the bread and the cup, it might be tempting to feel defeated. Who can stand against something that spreads so quickly? But I eat the bread, swallow the contents of the cup, call on the name of Jesus who died to set me free from the suffocating spread of bitterness. His Spirit lives in me, helping me to pull at those roots, blot out the records of wrongs, confess my anger, repent again, and walk forward in freedom. Because that is the hope of the gospel—victory that will one day eradicate every bitter root.
“Do you have bitterness in your heart?”
“Sometimes I do. But Jesus is greater than my heart.”
Love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs, but sometimes I do. And sometimes I have to blot out the record because bitterness is a willing plant, ever ready to put down deep roots in my heart. Share on X
[1] In case you’re wondering, any believer in good standing with their local church may take communion with us. Unbelievers are warned not to take, so as not to take in an unworthy manner (see 1 Cor. 11:27). Believers are cautioned not to take if engaged with ongoing strife with another believer and should settle the matter in love and forgiveness before partaking (see Matt. 5:24). I recognize churches approach fencing differently, and I’m not here to debate this but rather share how my local church seeks to handle our weekly communion practice.
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.