This quote definitely struck home. R.C. Sproul on the section titled “Marriage and Family” form the book Now, That’s a Good Question!; the question was “We see many problems in marriage today. What should make Christian marriages distinctive?”. Yes, it’s about marriage. It’s really strange how I came across this quote… I got this book from Systematic Theology I, and for some reason, as I was packing for the next six months of my life, I opened it up. And the strange thing is… this served to be the spring board for one of the most important entries I’ll write.
“Think for a minute about the gamut of emotions we go through in our friendships and our marriages. I’ve always said there’s no human being in the world who can make me more angry than my wife can. There’s no one in the world whose criticism can hurt me more than my wife’s because her opinion of me means more to me than anybody else’s. I have to know how to handle my emotions in that very volatile and vulnerable relationship. The Scriptures teach me that there is a difference between hurt and grief and bitterness. I’m allowed to be hurt. I’m allowed to grieve. But I’m not allowed to be bitter. I’m allowed to be angry, but I’m not allowed to let the sun go down on my wrath. The application of those principles that God gives to use goes a long way in helping us and many other people through these rough spots in human relationships.”
There had been so many instances this year when I’ve been bitter. And no… not as a husband is bitter to a wife… but you get the point. Bitter at a certain person, bitter at a group of people… Just plain stankin’ bitter.
Now the calendar year is ending… and as I look back at the past 365 days and realize my greatest struggle past year wasn’t pride, as it was years past… it was bitterness. Pride definitely comes in at a close second, but only because I don’t think I see how bitter I’ve grown at the world.
I have a feeling though… if I look deeper into the Word and into myself, I’m going to find that this bitterness actually sprang into life through my pride, but that’s going to take another year to sit through and figure out (AKA PRAY). Back to Josh Kim’s bitterness issue.
Bitter: “resentful because of one’s bad experiences or a sense of unjust treatment”
That really does take the words out of my mouth. Unjust… treatment. I really feel like I was… for a lack of a better word… “treated”. I got treated by life, by people, by circumstances. That’s what I feel… er… felt.
My pride won’t have me saying it, but man, am I hurt. I feel like I got stabbed in the face. Er… I felt. I felt like I got stabbed in the face… oh, who am I kidding. The wounds are still quite fresh. And for some reason, it seems like every few days, someone squirts lemon juice all over me to make it all so better. (And seriously… every few days… It’s not like I took the average of weird things over the period of the past 12 months… there were weeks when every few days things would just be amazingly out of place…) Actually, my pride did win out. I told no one. I retract that statement. I told a couple people how things were going, without going into details about who or what. And I told even fewer people the whole story. Here, I would make use of a mathematical function to denote how the more detailed I got with my situation there would be less people who knew about it… and how this is one heck of a steep curve… but we’ll move on.
The thing that really hit home the hardest from that quote… was how I am allowed to hurt… how I’m allowed to grieve. Someone please point me to some verses… I know I’m going to be scouring the Bible for some of these verses… Could it be that pride blinded me insofar I felt untouchable by such silly feelings? Did I feel like I had to live a Christian life, completely emotionless and detached from all of my pain and suffering, as long as I was catering to the needs of others?
In the end, all of this caught up to me. I’m still in denial as to how hurt I am… from all these relationships. I feel like if I say I am hurt, then it becomes weakness in my character: What’s more… If I say that I am hurt… I feel like I’ve failed at being a child of God.
And no, I’m not saying this through pride… I genuinely believe that I ran through my reserves of Love I had stockpiled in Junior year in trying to reach out and be NOT myself. Alas, if I was myself… I would have become… yeah, let’s not even think about how detached I would have become. If I’m hurt… no. I can’t even bring myself to think like that. And so… anger enters.
Why am I so weak?
Another reason why this verse hits me in the face with a 3-wood. This “wife” character, with her criticism and her ability to make Dr. Sproul angry. Where is this person in my life? No… not that I need a wife at this time (the funny thing is… someone has told me this before… okay… back to the point), but someone whose words I will treasure and put forth into action. Yes, the Bible is there, but where are my older brothers and sisters?
They got put into a box because of my bitterness? In reality… they really did… move on. And really… it’s just time to find new ones again. No, not be bitter towards the ones that have moved on, but prayerfully think of the words that they have told me in the past. Ugh… so weak, Josh Kim. So very weak.
I don’t want you people to be depressed as you read this. I just want you guys to know what I’m struggling with. And… even though I’ve looked through this post several times, things won’t make 100% sense to you… actually… things will make more sense to you, depending on how close you are with me. Regardless, just take things for face value. I most likely subconsciously left something in here… ugh… pride…
So what is my application? What will I do, armed with this understanding of myself and the Truth?
I actually have no clue. This stuff is pretty new to me. I don’t even know if it’s half true.
Regardless, let 2007 come. Alas, I will fight. Continue to help me stay faithful, God.