A battle with bitterness

My battle with bitterness

This is a rather personal story of my struggle with bitterness, and how God saved me from it. Of course, God has more work to do on me I am sure, but I am happy with what He has done recently. I have had a great struggle with bitterness and it has culminated throughout the years and came to a climax in the last few weeks or so. I have been bitter at a number of people and circumstances in the last 10 years or so. I have been bitter against individuals younger that I who were far more talented at something I had done much longer than they had. These were individuals who were still kind to me in spite of my inability to conceal my frustration.

I was bitter at schools who would not re-admit me due to my academic record. I was bitter with employers with insincere employment practices. In one situation my employer deeply betrayed my trust by taking my passport by trickery for the year I worked under them. I was bitter at people who had hurt me, some of whom are long since deceased. I did not sit down and decide, “I am going to be bitter against this person or because of this situation.” Bitterness was something that grew in degrees so minute that I did not recognize the problem until recently when it began affecting my health in small ways. I had noticed a few weeks ago in particular that my blood pressure was higher than I had observed it before.      

In retrospect, this bitterness that developed showed me my need of a new heart. As a teenager, mostly in a public middle school, this situation was quite different. There were incidents where I experienced a range of attacks, some of them verbal and some physical; it was my habit to pray for those who precipitated these attacks even thought I initially had hard feelings towards them. This gave me peace of mind, the value of which I did not appreciate at that time. Unfortunately it did not occur to me that I should pray for my brothers when I did not get along with them, which was rare. This prayerful habit continued until college. I would pray for people who had difficulty controlling their animosity if it was aimed in my direction and taken out on me. In my early college years I attended a very small college and was friends with everyone there.  After several years in this college, when I worked overseas, I had experiences that began to sow invisible seeds of bitterness in my heart. 

It really became a problem after my after my early college years and after I came back from living overseas which was about ten years ago. After not having any perceived enemies for several years, my prayerful habit of praying for seeming enemies had stopped. It rarely occurred to me anymore to pray when bitter feelings emerged. On the rare occasions when it occurred to me that I should pray for a person or thank the Lord for a situation that caused bitterness to well up, I was no longer the willing young person I had been as a teenager. 

When I was hurt, then in that hurt, I refused to pray for the person or situation that made me bitter. This became a habit so ingrained that I forgot what praying for my supposed enemies had done for me. I did not realize it but my heart was slowly becoming hard in that I would not pray for God to bless those who had hurt me, and to thank Him for those situations which I perceived as trials without any benefits or any point.

In 2011, I graduated from college and went back to South Korea to teach English where I had previously lived. I began work in an old elementary school. I settled into a great working relationship with the school and despite lacking a genuine talent for teaching, I worked hard there. The school building was about 60 years old, and people had been saying for 20 years or more that a new school building would be built. This was a common refrain that I heard and I did not take the idea seriously at first.

At that time I taught 1^st grade that first year. Those 1^st graders are now 6^th graders, and in a way as their teacher, I considered them my kids. Of course I hoped that I would be able to teach in the new school whenever it was going to be built, and I also liked the idea of teaching those 1^st graders for the last year they would be in elementary. During that first year I had a specific reoccurring thought, and it was not in any way vague or nebulous. The thought was that I would not teach at the new school or teach my 1^st graders during their 6^th and last year of elementary school. How could I know during my first semester in 2011 that I would not teach at the new school and that I would teach my 1^st graders till the end of their 5^th year, but not their 6th? Yet this is exactly what happened. I did not realize that this thought was really God impressing me with what would happen. 

There was an 8 month period where I was not working at this elementary school. I left the elementary school in August 2014 thinking I would not return.  In my rational it was time for a change. The worst mistakes I have made have been my trying to direct my future instead of the Lord doing it for me. I left South Korea intending to come back and teach at a language institute in 2015. I did not intend to come back and work at the elementary school again. Last year when I was in the process of signing a contract with a language school, I began having repeated dreams of my students from the elementary school. In one week I had 5 dreams, all of my students from the Elementary school. Sensing the Lord’s possible leading, I inquired about whether there was a position available at the elementary school and there was. I prayed about it and even thought I was two weeks late, the Elementary school hired me. So I borrowed $2000 for the airfare for me and my wife to return back to Korea and work for the elementary school again.

I discovered when examining my contract that the school would not reimburse me for any of the airfare back to Korea. I was disappointed but it was not the end of the world.  When I came back to the elementary, the principle I had known and worked well with had gone to another school and a new principle had arrived. When I came back, I discovered that the new principle had decided to live in both the 2^nd and 3^rd floor of the apartment my wife and I had previously lived in. We had previously lived on the 3^rd floor, but the Principle decided he needed both floors which required our removal to other accommodations. There was a disagreement with among different persons at the school about whether this was fair, but the principle had the final word. I decided not to make a big deal about it, but it was not long before things happened that put the new principle and I on the wrong foot.

The school was having challenges with finances at that time, so they found the cheapest accommodations they could and they put us up several flights of stairs in some apartments that were about 50-60 years old. It was good in some ways because our utility bills were quite a lot less than before, and my wife and I made the best of it by making it as homey as we could. Nevertheless, I was beginning to struggle with hostility toward the new principle. According to my contract, the school would provide furniture, but along with some items my wife and I had in storage, the cost to move all of it to our updated accommodations (notice I left out the word ‘new’) was almost 500$.  

This is not a complaint list, but factors that intensified the growing animosity I felt to the new principle. About this time other strange things were happening. One Sabbath I got up, and since it was spring, I decided that it would be very nice to spend the day in nature. So I prepared a little lunch, and with some sermons and hymns on my phone, I walked up into the hills surrounding Busan. It was a beautiful spring day. At some point I came to a crossroad and had to decide to take one path or the other. Then as I stepped onto that one path, I would have an odd impression to take the other path instead…so I did. 

This happened several times. At one point I decided, “It is time for lunch!” I would sit down and before I could start eating, I would think, “It is too early to eat!” Well then I would get up and continue down the trail. After a while, I would see a Korean gazebo which is a common sight among the hiking trails in the hills. “Okay, this is a good place and a good time to eat,” and that is what I did. I sat down and ate my lunch while listening to a sermon. I could hear a group of hikers behind me as they sat in the same gazebo. They had gotten there after I did, and I did not want to bother them. They did not know me…or so I thought. So I kept my back turned and finished my lunch. The elementary school had stuck my picture on one of the vans they used to ferry students from and to the school, so I was not hard to recognize if the person was a Seventh Day Adventist in the region of Busan that I lived in.

I was surprised when someone sat next to me and asked whether I was from Busan Sahmyook Elmentary School. I looked in shock at who was speaking. It was someone I did not know, but someone who knew my wife and some of my former co-workers. She had worked at the same elementary school about 6 years before. Looking back, I can see that the Lord directed me to that spot for my lunch at just the time when that group of hikers would stop at that gazebo. This person and I had a long conversation, and as a result, my wife would go to her house twice a week for Korean lessons. They also became better acquainted. It was good for my wife who did not work and needed a friend to go and spend time with.

As the school year went on, I worked hard, hoping the new principle would decide to hire me for the next school year. There were times it was easy to like him. It was rare for English teachers to get bonuses for extra-curricular classes that were required teaching during the holidays, but the new principle always agreed when the Korean-English brought the subject up. And there were times when he was hard to like also. During this time, I remembered what I had thought during my first semester about not teaching at the new school or teaching my former 1^st graders who were now in my 5^th grade English classes.

I was optimistic about teaching at the new school. I enjoyed working with my co-workers and the Korean-English teacher who was almost like an older sister. The English department was like a well-oiled machine. I turned in late material maybe twice in the year unless it was something I did not know about. After several years of working there I operated well in the system of making lesson plans, tests, preparing for open class, and making work easier for my co-workers. It was a demanding position, but I liked it. I was not a perfect teacher, but I did not see any good reason for the principle not to hire me, although I kept this to myself. In the last half of last of year, I increased the quality of my work and the effort I put into classes to show the principle that I was a valuable teacher.

I did not know then that it was not the Lord’s plan for me to be there. The last open classes I had were the best I had taught as far as how the parents graded me. My students passed the last tests from the material I had taught them in class. The Korean-English teacher liked the idea of my staying at the elementary when the school moved as getting a new teacher acquainted with all of the duties and details of working there was not easy. It seemed that everything except the principle favored my staying with the school when they moved. There were some exceptions in that I did not please all of the parents all of the time, and the new-vice principle had an interesting sense of timing in showing up, not when class was going well, but when I was having challenges. Around the 1^st of December 2015, I was informed that the principle had decided not to rehire me, and I took it well, but inside I was greatly disappointed.

It was then that it became a great challenge to conceal my bitterness. Around this time the new school building was nearing completion and the principle had been overseeing the construction. I was required for several school functions to be at the new school a few times, and being there at that nice new building, knowing I would not teach there was a real trial. Around this time I was desperately trying not to be hostile to the new principle, and I avoided him so as to not say or do something I would regret later. I did not hide from my students that I would not be there the next year, and it was hard to teach them for the last month.

Around that time, something else happened. My wife knew that I was distressed at not working at the elementary school, and she told the person I had met in the woods earlier in the year on the Sabbath. When this friend heard what my wife said, she got on the internet and located a job in Seoul. She related the information she had gotten from the internet to my wife. I sent in all of the information required for the position which turned out to be a middle school and my future workplace. I was asked by this middle school to come up to Seoul from Busan (5 hour trip by bus) for an interview. While I did not think I did a great job with the interview, I was informed that I had been hired two days after the interview. I was really shocked because I had not expected the Middle school to hire me. They knew nothing about me except from the interview. I knew no-one there, or so I thought. From a logical standpoint, nothing seemed to favor my working there, but it is where I am working now.

I remembered what I had thought during my semester at the elementary school in Busan, and I began to suspect that the thought had been an impression from the Lord. Even though I had been hired at a very nice and well known middle school, I was still bitter at the principle of the elementary school. In the last month of the job, I was often at the new school for one obligation or another, and each time I went there I felt very small and unimportant. At the last staff diner, I was as bitter with the new principle as I had ever been towards anything or anyone; I was unable to enjoy the meal. Even though I had a nice new job waiting for me in Seoul, I was still very bitter at the new principle. I am not sure if I was successful at concealing my bitterness or not. I was bitter at the people the school hired to replace me…the new teachers who would be teaching my 5^th graders. Around this time I noticed that my blood pressure was higher than it had ever been and began to wonder why it was high.

Something else happened about this time. I was listening to an audiobook on youtube called Treasures of the Snow, by Patricia M. St. John. It is a work of fiction and the major theme is forgiveness and salvation. Some people might call it a kid’s story, but I was engrossed by it. The basic premise of the story is that a boy named Lucien (set in Switzerland) dangles another boy’s cat over the edge of a cliff. The cat scratches him and he accidentally drops the other boy’s cat over the cliff. The cat is fine but the other boy dives for the cat and falls over the cliff himself and breaks his leg.

The story is about Lucien learning to forgive himself and coming to know the love of the Savior. The other boy named Danny has an older sister (Anette) who cannot forgive Lucien for what he caused to happen to her little brother. At one point in the story, Anette’s grandmother is telling her that she needed to pray for Lucien. She angrily questions why she should pray for Lucien. The grandmother replied that in praying for Lucien, God would soften her heart. After listening to this audiobook several times, I realized that I had the same problem as Anette.  I would not pray for people or thank God for the situations I found to be a trial. What was the difference between me as an adult, and my younger self who would pray for his ‘supposed’ enemies and thank God for trials?  I realized that pride was the cause. When I was younger, pride was not something I struggled with because I had not accomplished anything and my self-worth was not based in my abilities or talents. In some bizarre way, I held onto offenses of the past and the things that people did that hurt me.

I felt to forget what happened was an injustice of some sort, and I would not allow that to happen. To forget the wrong I perceived had been done to me seemed a weakness to me, and I would be strong… I would not forget.  I did not realize that this was making my heart very hard…and the sad part was, I did not know this. I needed healing to begin. I had to become weak in my own eyes by praying for the principle I came close to hating.

I was bitter at the principle…and at the last staff dinner, I was unexpectedly asked to give a farewell speech, and I said at the time that I did not know what to say. It was an awkward moment for me. He was taking my students I loved away from me. Another part of my bewilderment was because I was not sure if it was my performance as a teacher or convenience for the school that led to my not being rehired. I thought of all the hard work I had put in…the numerous time I had stayed past 12 at night to finish something. My students improved test scores. Bitter people are miserable people. But like Anette in the story…I prayed for the person who as I perceived ruined everything for me. Here came the really difficult part. I asked the Lord to bless the principle. To be with him and guide him…to grant him success in all that he did.  

The next morning I woke up feeling as light as a feather…as if I was a dove and there was nothing but blue skies above me to fly in. I felt joyful. And so I prayed for the principle again knowing that God would grant my prayer request. It felt so good. I relived the peace and softness of heart I felt as a youngster more than 20 years before when I prayed for kids who had verbally and physically attacked me. “Who can I pray for next? Who else am I bitter at? Ah…my canvassing leader who was much younger than I am, with less experience than I had (not true by this time) yet who was very talented as both canvassing and leading.

Lord, please bless JH. Guide him and bless him is all that he does. I ask that you would continue to lead him, and that you’re Holy Spirit would be with him! I would be glad to be on his team and learn from him if the opportunity came. I prayed for my employer who had taken my passport by trickery. So I went down the list of people I had been bitter with one by one, and the situations I considered trials. I thanked God for them and every day I remember someone or some situation to thank God for although soon I am going to run out of people I was bitter against whom I had  not prayed for yet, and situations I had not thanked God for.

God was kind to impress me early on that I would not remain at the elementary school; otherwise I would have assumed that it was solely my performance as a teacher that had precipitated my not being rehired. My work ethics are something I take very seriously and to think people thought I was lazy would have been something I could not have gotten over in just a few weeks. But that was not the case. I have gratefully listened when my supervisors have thanked me for my hard work. At this new school...oddly, there are some favorite students here I know from the past at the elementary. And now, God has opened the doors to the middle school where I work now…and I love it…my job…the students…and my coworkers and my cosy and nice little home. I am immensely thankful.

In 2008, I realized that I had a desperate need of a new heart and while I did not realize that I had a problem with bitterness then, I prayed every day for a new heart, and being able to pray for people I refused to pray for before, is proof that He is in the business of giving a new heart. God does not want us to be bitter. He did not want me to be bitter. As long as bitterness lives in our hearts, our hearts will be hard. I realized that God’s plan all along was to use this whole situation to rid me of the cancer of bitterness. I still miss my old 1st graders who are now in 6th grade, but I know they are in good hands.  Do I still have trouble pray for people I used to be bitter at? Sometimes yes, but I refuse to listen to my feelings. I am going to listen to faith. I will pray for them and God will continue to change my heart from hard to soft. The last time I checked, my blood pressure was down from before.  In this experience I can say that I have experienced redemption in real sense. I think about the things that the principle did…and before they really bothered me a lot. Now it is water off a duck’s back. When I think of those things, they do not matter, and I have a desire to give this principle a bear hug…although I am not sure of what his reaction will be.  Prayer has a new or perhaps long absent element of joy again…asking God to bless people I no-longer view as people I don’t like. I can’t wait to see how God will bless them! If you are bitter at anyone or any situation, it is not a weakness to pray for them or it…it will be one of your greatest strengths!