N8tivegirl

by Valrelyn Parson

We don’t like to admit it, but bitterness can make a home in us long after a person has walked out of our lives.

It grows quietly, spreading like an infection, turning hurt into hardness and anger into identity.

But here’s the truth we don’t always want to face:

Bitterness isn’t an emotion — it’s an infection.

Emotions come and go. Bitterness stays, settles, and spreads.

You keep replaying the moment after the moment.

Not just what they did… but what you kept.

You replay the betrayal, rehearse the wound, relive the rejection — and wonder why healing hasn’t come.

The Infection Within

You allow what happened to you to become what grows in you.

You’ve carried the wound so long you’ve started to live like your pain is your personality.

But hear me clearly:

You are not what happened to you.

You are not the breakup.

You are not the betrayal.

You are not the abandonment.

Bitterness blinds you. It binds you.

It makes you attack the new man because of the infection you refuse to release from the last one.

You say you want a healthy relationship — but every good person who comes into your life is forced to fight the ghost of your ex. They didn’t hurt you, but they’re paying for wounds they never caused.

Wrestling With a Past That Won’t Let Go

Like Jacob, you’re wrestling.

But unlike Jacob, you refuse to let go.

Your ego has become armor, but it’s cracked and it’s wounded.

Your defenses look like strength, but they’re actually fear dressed up as survival.

Bitterness turns defense into self-destruction.

And let’s be honest:

Have you accepted the places where you caused bitterness in someone else?

Where your hurt made you hurt someone who didn’t deserve it?

Where your unhealed places turned love into confusion?

When Bitterness Becomes Identity

Bitterness keeps you bound to a past season while life keeps calling you forward.

Hurt is a cut.

But bitterness?

Bitterness is crippling.

Hurt happens to you.

Bitterness grows in you.

It turns grief into a cycle.

Pain into patterns.

Memory into maturity that never happens.

The more you focus on the wound, the deeper the root grows.

A Hard Truth to Heal By

How people treat you says a lot about them.

But how you respond says everything about you.

And bitterness always reveals the same thing:

A memory that refuses to mature.

Let This Be Your Turning Point

Baby girl, let it go.

Not for him.

Not for the past.

Not even for closure.

But for you.

For the woman you are becoming.

For the future God is trying to hand you — the one bitterness keeps blocking.

You can’t walk into a healed future with infected hands.

Release the anger.

Release the betrayal.

Release the story you’ve been replaying.

God cannot heal the wound you keep reopening.

Your heart deserves peace.

Your soul deserves rest.

Your future deserves freedom.

Let bitterness die so you can finally live.

A Prayer to Release Bitterness

Father,

I come to You with hands that have held pain for far too long.

I admit that bitterness has grown in places where healing should have lived.

I’ve replayed moments I should have released, and I’ve carried wounds You’ve asked me to put down.

Today, I choose surrender.

Heal every part of me that still bleeds.

Touch the places I’ve hidden — the anger, the betrayal, the rejection, the disappointment.

Pull up every bitter root that has tangled itself around my heart.

Teach me to respond from wisdom, not wounds.

Teach me to love without fear and trust without replaying the past.

Cover my mind with peace and steady my emotions with Your truth.

Restore who I am beneath the hurt.

Restore the softness, the joy, the hope, and the freedom I lost along the way.

Let my heart learn to breathe again.

And Lord…

If I have caused bitterness in someone else,

give me the courage to own it

and the grace to change it.

I release the weight of what was

so I can walk into the future You’ve prepared.

Make my heart new.

Make my spirit whole.

And let forgiveness begin its healing work in me.

Amen.