Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger.
—Ephesians 4:31
In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens introduces us to a bitter old lady, Miss Havisham. She’s wearing a tattered wedding dress and has wilted flowers in her hair.
On her wedding day, the guests had come, but the bridegroom hadn’t. At twenty minutes until nine, he’d had a letter delivered to her, saying he wasn’t going to marry her. At that very minute and hour, Miss Havisham had all the clocks in the house stopped. And she had remained dressed as she was at twenty minutes until nine the day she was jilted.
For these many years, Miss Havisham had wallowed in bitterness, wrecking relationships with all whose lives her’s touched.
In the backwash of mistreatment, bitterness is understandable. But resentment is defeated, or it grows. You will conquer it, or it will conquer you.
Bitterness is destroyed, or it destroys.