A Prayer to Let Go of Bitterness

Father, I can feel it in me, the bitterness that has set like cement, the way my stomach knots when a certain memory surfaces. I have nursed this so long it feels like part of who I am.

I confess I have enjoyed being right about how wronged I was. The resentment gave me something to hold, a quiet fire to warm my hands on. But it is burning me, not them.

I am tired of being sour. Tired of letting one wound poison the way I see everyone. So I bring the bitterness into Your light, all of it, and ask You to pull it up by the roots.

Your Word warns that bitterness, left to grow, defiles everything around it. I do not want to become a person who has gone hard. Soften the soil of my heart again.

Replace the venom with something I had almost forgotten, the lightness of not keeping score.

I surrender the right to stay angry. Take this weight I have carried so long I stopped noticing it. Make me free, and make me gentle again. Amen.