Hebrews 12: 14 – 15 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

I am a country girl and while growing up my siblings and I had plenty of room to roam. But we also had what is now called “chores” and kids get paid to do them. In our case we were simply told once what needed to be done and we knew very well that there were consequences for disobedience. Summer camp was not part of our vocabulary. In my case when school was out, one of the things I had to do was weed the flower garden. I grew to enjoy it and learned a lot about the nature of different plants and weeds. I can’t remember many of the names now but I noticed there was a weed that simply ran along the surface of the ground and was easily pulled up with barely a tug. Then there was something called the “broom weed”. It sank its roots deep into the soil and you could break your back trying to pull that thing up. When it finally yielded you could find yourself stumbling backwards.

Bitterness is like the broom weed. It sinks its root deep into your psyche and creates havoc in your relationships. Like the broom weed which has no place in the garden, bitterness has no place in the believer’s life because it is toxic.

Read about Hannah’s experience in 1 Samuel 1. She was wife number one to Elkanah and she was childless. She was also greatly loved by her husband, but wife number two tortured her relentlessly and she became very bitter about it. The good news is that she handled her bitterness the right way – she prayed to the Lord and wept before him because she did not want to continue along that path. She was very specific in her prayer in asking God to change her situation. She also made a vow as to what she would do on her part. Getting rid of bitterness requires action on your part – identify the source and root it out.