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Resentments
The Recovering Community shares this wisdom with us: "This business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die." ~Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 66. According to one of the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, "Punishment never heals. Only love can heal." Bill W., Letter, 1966.
Resentments harm us
It becomes apparent that our resentments harm us even more than those we resent. They're so powerful that they don't go away when we have no further contact with the one we resent. They can remain with us even though the person has died long ago. If we consider someone we resent even for a few seconds right now, we can upset our entire equilibrium. Our blood pressure will go up and we can get ourselves into such a state that it's hard for us to know what to do. So, how can we best handle those resentments?
There are many things it best not to do. It doesn't do us any good to rehearse the resentment. Going over it in our heads hundreds of times simply gives that person more power in our lives. Plotting revenge isn't particularly effective either. The more we think of the situation the worse we feel. If our thinking is not going to result in any action, then it's fruitless. It can be very helpful for us to pray the Serenity Prayer. Here it is ...
Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the Serenity Accept ... Change ... Know
Now we can consider the things we need to accept. If the person doesn't like us and shows no willingness to look at us in any other way, then it's fruitless to try to make the person like us. Many people express anger not because of what we've done, but because they're angry people, with issues of their own. There are many things we cannot change. We certainly can't change that! We don't need to allow the issues of others to upset our equilibrium and become our issues. We have very little power over other people, places or things. We can give the situations we can do nothing about to God and allow God to take care of them.
There are some things we can change. We can certainly change ourselves and our own reactions to those who have harmed us. We can change the words we use to describe what happened from "terrible" or "horrible" to "unfortunate." We can't deal with things that are terrible or horrible. Those are out-of-control words. "Unfortunate" situations can be dealt with and then left behind. Many things are "unfortunate." Things become "terrible" or "horrible" only when we let them.
We need courage to change what we can. Perhaps that means making peace with the person involved. We clean up our side of the fence. Perhaps we'll go to the person we resent and apologize for our part in the difficulty. We must do that with absolutely no expectation that the person will return the favor and apologize to us as well. If we've done real harm, it's a good idea to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. If we've added to the problem through judgment and gossip, we can express sorrow for that as well. What goes around comes around. Our unkind words will come back to us and bring unhappiness to our lives. Become willing.
We can suspend judgment. A wise person once said, "To understand everything is to forgive everything." We can give the person who has harmed us the benefit of the doubt. We can pray for them. We can pray that they receive all the good things in lives we'd like to have ourselves. We can pray that they become so deliriously happy that they don't feel the need to hurt anyone else. We can pray this prayer without condition, and without asking anything for ourselves. When negative thoughts return we can pray the "Serenity Prayer," then a prayer for the person we resent.
We certainly need to have the wisdom to know what we can change and what we can't. It's not good for us to give up too soon. We can seek God's wisdom during our times of prayer as well. Then it's best to concentrate first on things that can be changed.
God can do for us what we could never do for ourselves. If we try all these things and still find we're resentful, then we've done all we can do by ourselves. It's time to turn our resentment over to God. How do we do that?
Pray for the willingness to let go of the resentment. It's not a good idea to set a time limit for when we'll let go. It's not good for us to decide what it will feel like after we've let go. It's not good for us to figure out when and how God should work. We simply pray for willingness. We can say, "God, help me become willing to let go of this resentment." It's a prayer that we might do this "some day." It might be a year or twenty years from now, or five minutes, five hours or five days. Time is not our concern. We just need to become willing to let go. They melt away.
And our resentment will simply melt away. When it's happened it will have been effortless. We'll have trouble even giving God the credit, it will have been so natural and easy. God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We just need to let God do that. I hope this page has been helpful. Resentments are certainly troublesome. We're not off the hook until we let others off the hook. As we pray so often in the Lord's prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Know that you're very much in my prayers as you strive to turn those resentments over to God. Keep me in your prayers as well!
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In
Matthew 18:35, Jesus tells us we must forgive our brother or sister from our
heart. Earlier in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus speaks again about
forgiveness. "Peter came and said to Jesus, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven
times? 'Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.'" ~Matthew 18:21-22 It's not easy to do, that's for sure.
We can often find it in our hearts to forgive those we love, but it's harder to
forgive those we don't particularly care for. Resentments don't go away
all by themselves, and they have great power.