The Things We Grip the Tightest
There are things people hold onto long after holding on has stopped serving any useful purpose. Old hurts that are years removed from the event but somehow still present at the table. Disappointments that have calcified into a permanent low-grade bitterness. Expectations that were never met and have since become a lens through which every new interaction gets filtered.
And there is always a reason the grip feels justified. What happened was genuinely unfair. The person who caused the hurt has never acknowledged it. The disappointment was real and nobody has ever validated that. Holding on feels, from the inside, like the only honest response to something that deserved better.
But here is what long years of pastoral ministry taught me. The person doing the holding is almost always the one paying the highest price for it. The object of the grip rarely feels the pressure. The one gripping it does.
“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.”
~ Ephesians 4:31
What Bitterness Actually Does Over Time
Ephesians 4:31 uses a strong word. Get rid of. Not manage. Not reduce to acceptable levels. Get rid of. That is the language of something that is genuinely harmful when left in place.
Bitterness does not stay contained. That is one of its defining characteristics. It starts in one specific place, with one specific grievance against one specific person or situation. Left unaddressed, it spreads. It changes the way you read new situations. It makes you slower to trust. It puts a ceiling on the depth of connection you can have with new people because a part of you is still back there, at the original injury, keeping score.
The cost is not always visible. Bitter people are often functioning well on the surface. They have jobs and families and social lives. But something inside is narrower than it was before the thing that caused the bitterness happened. And the narrowing continues quietly for as long as the grip is maintained.
Letting Go Is Not the Same as Pretending
This is the same distinction that matters in forgiveness. Letting go does not mean the thing that hurt you was acceptable. It does not mean it did not matter. It does not require you to pretend the disappointment was not real or that the person who caused it behaved well.
What it does require is a decision. A decision that you are not willing to let this thing continue shaping the person you are becoming. That the cost of the grip is higher than the cost of releasing it. That the version of you who is free from this is more worth having than the version of you who has maintained the justifiable grievance.
That decision is almost never made once. It tends to get made repeatedly, each time the familiar bitterness resurfaces, until eventually the pattern changes and the grip loosens for good.
Try This Before the Week Is Out
Identify one thing you are holding onto that is costing you more than you typically admit. A disappointment. A resentment. An expectation that was never met. Write it down specifically.
Then write one sentence beneath it: what would be different about me if I were no longer carrying this?
That answer is worth praying toward. Not the resolution of the situation necessarily. The version of yourself that is free from it. Ask God to help you get there, one choosing at a time.
One Last Thing Before You Go
Letting go is not a defeat. It is not saying that what happened was fine or that your feelings about it were wrong. It is saying that you refuse to let the past write the rest of the story. You were not designed to carry certain weights indefinitely. The moment you set this particular one down, something in you will breathe that has not fully breathed in a long time.
A Prayer for Today
“Lord, I have been holding onto something that I know is costing me. Part of me feels like letting it go is the same as saying it did not matter. Help me to understand that releasing this is not about minimizing what happened. It is about refusing to let it keep shaping me. I am choosing, right now, to open my hand. Help me mean it. Help me keep choosing it when the grip tries to tighten again. Amen.”
Morning Whispers by Dr. Paul Lindblad includes deeply personal, honest devotional reflections on forgiveness, letting go and the freedom that comes on the other side of both. Get your copy or subscribe to the Daily Devotions newsletter for weekly content delivered directly to your inbox.