Heart Work

I read a book that talked about the heart work that God does.  I started to feel the heart work that God was doing in my life.  There is a situation in my life that has caused me to harbor bitterness for a long time.  I have a sister who has caused a great deal of hurt in our family.  Her poor decisions and bad behavior have caused pain for us her sisters, my mother, and her children.  Some of these pains in others' lives have cut a lot deeper than the hurts she has caused in mine.  So why couldn't I forgive her.  Well starting with that lenten service I started to feel God pulling at me to work on my forgiveness.  To try and rid that bitterness from my heart.  To heal more of the wounds that have scared my heart and traps those bad feelings in there.  After a lot of prayers and contemplation I was able to begin the path to forgiveness.  Eventually this journey took me to a place where I felt I could forgive her for what she had done in my life and to eliminate some of the bitterness that I had kept bottled up for so long.
Not too long after that this forgiveness was put to the test.  My sister who had been out of my life for about a year managed to find a way back in to it.  My mom told me that she would be coming back to her house.  For a minute that threw me for a loop and I didn't know how to feel.  The old anger and bitterness that had been harbored there for so long tried to resurge.  Then I felt God's soothing hand.  It calmed that storm of feelings that tried crash in.  Soon I would discover that this forgiveness was not just for me.  Because of the way that I was able to forgive and rid myself of those feelings I was able to support my mom with some of the feelings and decisions that she would have to make.  I know that through this God is trying to soften my heart.  I can feel him trying to soften it for some greater purpose that I haven't seen yet.  I can tell you that someone is going to come in my life who needs this and God is preparing me to be his tool.
The problem is with more bad decisions and hard times it tests my new found patience.  Along with that is the end of the year stress that comes with my job and the stress that comes with the wonderful spring football practice I have not been in the best place as of late. And it has brought me back to take a much closer look at the bitterness that my heart harbors there.  This made me think of something else that same author says.  She says that God will keep bringing you back to the issues in your life until you are really able to deal with them, until you are finally able to get past them and give them up.  I think this is what is happening here.  God keeps bringing me back to this bitterness in my heart because he is preparing me for something.  Something that he needs me to do.  Hopefully as I continue to pray for God to relieve the bitterness from my heart he will give the tools to be able to do that.  Heart work can be messy, but its totally worth it even when you feel like you are taking one step forward and two steps back.  Maybe that means that God thinks thats an issue that needs more of your or my attention.