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Bitter-melon

This morning I was standing with hundred other people for Sunday worship. The worship team was singing “There is no one like you Lord…” I was doing my best to be in worship and not wander somewhere else where things were replaying like a movie in my mind. I really struggled to be present before the mighty God that everyone was praising.

People prayed their hearts out. And after a while the word came that there were some people needing emotional healing and God wanted to heal them from deep within. I was standing like an emotionless thing hard from inside. Suddenly a picture flashed before my eyes. It was green fresh bitter gourd. And I heard a voice – you are as bitter as this. I don’t know whose voice it was but that hardly mattered because I knew the voice was right. A few people who needed emotional healing this morning were the ones whom I had hurt. The picture of bitter gourd then held me occupied for quite some time. I have dealt with hurt of my past many times – but it just doesn’t seem to go.

Not long ago, one day I was traveling to office with my colleagues. We were talking about how a year had passed by so quickly. A year ago on the same month our office had moved to our present location. Suddenly it reminded me of an incident in which someone was so upset and angry with me for no fault of mine. And to be polite and cordial I had not expressed my disappointment and had not confronted for getting unreasonably upset and angry with me. Back to the car. As my colleagues were still talking about the inauguration party and the excitement I was raging with anger. I was muttering to my self – how come so and so treated me like this. A whole year later, I was still hurt and angry.

I read few articles on how to deal with bitterness. They say if you don’t have a forum to express your anger, if you have not confronted in love and if you have not forgiven someone you are letting bitter roots to grow inside of you. I know some people who show their anger right in the middle of things that caused them to anger, throwing everyone else in discomfort. And once the hour of anger passes by they just acknowledge it and are ready to move on. Easy, isn’t it? And there are others who have venting forum (some close friends and relatives) that they go and vent out. But there are some people like me who are afraid to express what they really feel. They appear to be open and honest because they do share their joys and sorrows openly. But when it comes to disappointments, hurt and anger – they just turn turtle. Hiding. Turning hard from outside. I read that if we don’t deal with the bitterness growing inside us, it will change us completely. We just become hard, cynic and negative person. I don’t know for how long I have been nurturing this bitter root to grow – maybe for last 15 or 20 years. I didn’t even realize when I changed into a hard, negative, and difficult to love kind of person.

Well the steps to dealing with bitterness they say starts with forgiveness. Where do I start? The list of the names is really long. I once forgave them all but I guess I didn’t really let go off the resentments. I remember the first time I came to Delhi, ritualistically I went through a random list of names and forgave them or asked God’s forgiveness. I wish the process in the heart could get as easy as that practice. I wish I could jut erase those memories and names from the list forever and be totally free. The more bitter I get the more bitterness I spread the more I lose chances of surrounding myself with love and kindness.

Once a friend who loves cooking said that to counter bitter or hot spicy taste one needs to add loads of sweetness to it. I guess love and kindness is the only way to counter the bitterness in heart. If you are lucky you would have a loving close knit family to run to at the end of the day. But if you are not then the danger is that the very few close friends you have managed to have will eventually be affected by your bitterness and you will lose any chance of surrounding your self with love and kindness. But if you are a person like me, I have a wild card, (that’s knowing Jesus) then we have access to ultimate love and kindness from God. It’s not the same as with people, just need to get spiritually tuned and we could always run to God whenever we run out of sweetness in our lives.

It’s not easy to be flashed a bitter gourd picture in the middle of your dhyan and bhakti. (devotion) but I guess that’s reality. That’s human. And that’s me and I have got to accept it and ask God to help me.

P.S. I think I am going to do a show around bitter gourd recipe and talk about dealing with bitterness in life.

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