February 10, 2011

"DON'T HOLD A GRUDGE AGAINST ANYONE!"

Have you ever heard the saying that holding a grudge only hurts one person, the person who is holding it? Grudges breed only negative behaviors, such as hatred, bitterness, and resentment. One can lose a lot of time and energy while holding a grudge. You may be thinking, well, you have no idea how this or that person hurt me. You are right. I do not know how people have hurt you in the past, but I can speak from my own personal experiences that I know how hurt feels.

It is our decision what we do with this hurt. We can learn to hate, or we can learn the life experience that God might be trying to teach us. Every situation in life has a learning experience, and through time, it gets a little easier to recognize what it is that God is trying to teach us.

For the past 20 years, I could have been named the Queen of Grudges. If someone ticked me off, I was quick to let them know how they offended me, and that I would never speak to them again. However, once your life's perspectives get put into order, and you start realizing what is important and what is not so important in life, one's outlook on grudges change.

Let me tell you a little story about how holding a grudge will hurt the person who is holding the grudge. My husband's first chemotherapy treatments were scheduled to start of Christmas Eve of 2009. My husband's sister, who lives in New York, was visiting other relatives in our Pennsylvania town the week before Christmas. Since my husband's chemo treatments were planned to start on Christmas Eve, I thought that his sister would visit before the treatments started, or I thought she would stop in at the hospital during his treatments. However, this was not going to happen. She called the night before Christmas Eve and stated that she was leaving to go back home to New York the next morning, Christmas Eve. I became irate! How dare she leave town without visiting her brother who had been diagnosed with cancer, and who was starting the most horrific battle of his life! In my mind, this was the most inconsiderate gesture I had ever seen anyone make. The next day while my husband was getting pumped with chemotherapy drugs, I am in the restroom getting sick because of my anger toward his sister.

In this scenario, who was I hurting? I was only hurting myself. I should have been sitting beside my husband and holding his hand instead of vomitting in the restroom. Grudges do not solve anything. They simply take away precious time that we could be spending with the people we love. Do not waste your time holding a grudge against anyone!