Cancer is a most insidious disease.  I’ve read that all of us carry cancer-causing carcinogens in our bodies, and for many those carcinogens lie dormant for years, sometimes forever.  At some point, a trigger activates a particular carcinogen and cancer begins to grow unknown to the person hosting those cancer cells.  By the time a diagnoses detects cancer, it has become dangerous and radical treatment is in order.

Bitterness is to the spirit what cancer is to the body – an insidious but destructive hidden element that grows until it does its carrier harm.  Consider wise counsel from God’s Word:

See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled… – Hebrews 12:15

Notice that bitterness begins as a root.  Something happens to me that I do not like, someone hurts me or attacks me, or I harbor ill feelings toward someone that I refuse to resolve.  The negativity inside of me seems harmless, no one knows about it but me, and the few(?) people to whom I express my displeasure, but if I am harboring unforgiveness, and if I do not release the hurt I am feeling, then trouble looms.  My untreated bitterness will result in the hurt of others.  Just as an oncologist proactively and radically deals with cancer, so also we must radically deal with unforgiveness before it becomes bitterness and if it’s too late, then deal with the bitterness before it explodes.

Notice the verse above cautions, “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God…”  Since we have received grace from God, we need to extend grace to others.  If you have been hurt, let go, forgive.  Forgive as often as the hurt tries to return, over and over, daily, several times a day.  Ask God to heal your hurt and live in the freedom of forgiveness.  If you ask God to give you enough grace to forgive those who have hurt you, He will give you enough to have plenty left over for yourself to heal your hurt.