Bitter

God has given me a word.
A little 6 letter word. Most of
the time when he gives me words to write, it starts with a word then it’s an
idea then scripture follows and before you know it, BAM, there you have
it. But this past weekend this word kept
creeping up into all of my conversations, each time with a different
meaning. It never seemed to go anywhere.
So last night I still have this nagging
feeling I am supposed to write it down.
So here goes. But I have nothing
except …bitter.


When I was a kid at home my dad kept a cabinet for his
medicinal purposes. And if any of you
knew my dad, it wasn’t a small cabinet!
He loved to research and he loved to explore. He loved nature and plants. When you add all that together you get home remedies. When I was growing up if you got sick you
didn’t go to the doctor. Shoot, they
didn’t even call the doctor. They tried
whatever their parents tried or something from that cabinet! I remember one time I was sick, probably the
stomach virus, sitting in the kitchen and my mom bringing out the BIG spoon for
castor oil. That was a cure all for
everything. The only way I can describe
that taste is repulsive. She would often
try to hide and disguise it in tea or other various things. Never worked!
How many of you have had that? I
know there are many. I couldn’t have
been the only one. Well that was my mom’s
cure all. My dad liked roots. Once I had a sore throat and he went to the
cabinet. It was a tall white metal cabinet;
the door didn’t latch very well. Usually
flopped open, sure which I had a picture of it.
Anyway, to the cabinet, he brought out this dried up piece of root,
yellow root. He told me to stick it in
my jaw and just suck on it like candy.
Well candy it wasn’t. The only
word to describe it is …bitter! It had such a nasty flavor. If colors had flavor, it would actually taste
yellow I think. When I think of that
root today it brings memories of bile.
Like gallbladder! If anyone of
you have ever had a gallbladder attack and thrown up til you can’t
anymore? You get the picture. Needless to say it’s so bitter that you
forget about your sore throat. It is a
scientific proven fact that this root is medicinal. I cannot tell you for sure if it helped my
sore throat. My sore throat eventually
went away, but I think it would have eventually anyway.


Another of his home
remedies was ginseng. He planted it, dug
it, dried it, sold it, shared it, and used it as medicine. Sounds like your modern day drug dealer! Well he would brew it up for tea and drink it
for his arthritis mostly. Sometimes I
would find him experimenting with his different ailments trying to see if
different things worked. He hated modern
day medicine with a passion. And trust
me he was on a boat load. He had another
cabinet for that. He was a coal miner,
among many other laborer titles, so he had all the diseases that went along
with that. In the 70’s he developed
Black Lung, respiratory disease of a coal miner. As with any lung disease, it eventually
involves the heart. Later in years he
developed congestive heart failure, then that led to arrhythmias of the heart, hypertension,
diabetes, chronic urinary tract infections, osteoarthritis, glaucoma, benign prostatic
hypertrophy…you get the picture. He had
a lot of ailments. He would give the
doctor their chance; he would try their drug of choice for his illness. At the first side effect, it was
history! Back to his tall white
cabinet. He was almost 88 when he
passed. Which, as I write these words it
just dawned on me that is why God has given me that one word! Daddy has been on my mind so much and I had
forgotten some of these things. So thank
you God for these memories. It was March
16, 2010, when Daddy went to Heaven. I
had forgotten that. The date had slipped
my mind. Whenever Spring begins with the
flowers budding and the trees begin to sprout I always think of him and that
time is now. I think of his wisdom. I imagine walking around the yard with him
and out in the apple orchard where he would tell me about each and every graft
he put on the trees. He would tell me
who he got it from as if I knew them. I
know he had a George Martin apple, and that’s just because he got it from
George Martin. I remember it was red and
tart and really good. I miss the way he
would take his crooked finger (arthritis) and point to various flowers and
trees. Oh the stories he could tell, all
gone now except in my memory. My
children were so fortunate to hear his stories first hand and even be the
recipient of an occasional home remedy.
One day when I came home from work Jacob was about 6 months old, he had
been coughing. He has tied around his
neck a string with a dime on it. Daddy
had drilled a hole in a dime and put on a string and tied it around his
neck. Not sure what its purpose was but
all I could think of was he was going to choke on the dime! Mommy just smiled and said just wait til you
get him home then take it off. Which
I did! Who knows that may have prevented
pneumonia! LOL


As I write these thoughts and memories down I have asked God,
what do you want me to tell? What about
this bitter word am I supposed to tell?
So I googled the word bitter and wow that’s a lot of scripture so I
prayed on that one! God you have to
narrow it down! So this morning as I
open my email I have daily devotions delivered to my inbox and don’t you know
God delivered! Yes He did! Right to my inbox!



Ruth
1:20-21 (NIV)


20
“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because
the Almighty has made my life
very bitter. 21 I went away full, but
the Lord has brought me back
empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord
has afflicted me; the
Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”


Every one of us has experienced the bitterness of life. We have suffered the loss of a love, maybe
through death, maybe through divorce, a failed relationship…and just like that
yellow root it is bitter and leaves a bad taste in your mouth. But that’s where faith comes in. And just like God took care of Ruth and
Naomi, by working everything out for them, he will for us too. All the little things in our daily life are
not mere coincidences but finely orchestrated moments by the Almighty conductor. Each person we meet, the choices we make,
each new day we take advantage of….all Gods intervention. We have to sit back and just say Wow! Because it is so fine tined. Yes at times it is bitter, but at other times
it is sweet! So sweet! And that is what makes the bitter moments bearable. Put your trust in the one who wasn’t afraid
to get in the trenches. He has tasted
the bitterness himself. Jesus has been
there done that. He understands. He touched the leper. He has comforted the widow, the fatherless,
the prostitutes, the thieves….no matter what their bitterness in life, He has
made it sweet!


Psalm 119:10 (NIV)


10 I
seek you with all my heart;

do not let me stray from your commands


The more you seek Him, the more you find
Him. He is that sweetness in your
life. The devil is out there. There is lots of evil in our world. Lots of bitterness out there.



1 Peter 5:8 (NIV) 8
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a

roaring lion looking for someone to devour.


The trick is don’t stay bitter. No matter
what you are dealt in life don’t remain bitter.
If you have ever tasted bittersweet?
It is good! And it will be
sweeter if it has tasted bitter!