Breaking Free: Overcoming Bitterness and Finding Sweet Love

My First Healing Moment With God

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” — Psalm 147:3

It was during an altar call at my church many, many years ago. I was struggling with some feelings of anger and bitterness. My way of dealing with hurt was to internalize my feelings. We all get hurt in life. People hurt our feelings every day. I remember as a child, getting my feelings hurt a lot. I was the very sensitive, creative type. I didn’t let things roll off my back like other kids – or so I thought they did.

My way was to run off to my room or to stuff the feelings. Hurt turns to anger and then bitterness if we are not careful. So, it was many years later; I was an adult by this time, and I had stuffed a lot of hurt – even things from my childhood.

I remember on this day, the pastor at my church was speaking out words of knowledge for the types of healing that the Lord was putting on his heart for the congregation. One of those words was, “There is someone here who is struggling with bitterness.” My heart began to pound. I knew it was me. My heart was pounding, but it felt like something beyond me was making it pound .. I knew it was God putting an urgency on me to propel me to move. I was scared. I didn’t want to go up in front of all those people. It was like being exposed. I didn’t want that. But the pounding in my heart was pushing me. I knew I needed to respond.

I gathered my courage and went up to the altar. It’s funny cos I felt like everyone would stare at me, but nobody was even paying attention to me. They didn’t know me, or why I was coming up. There were others already coming up for their own healing.

These three wonderful ladies prayed over me after I told them why I had come up. And as they were praying for God to touch me, I could feel that I had some walls up. Walls trying to protect my heart – years and years of it.

They prayed and prayed for me, and after some time had passed I expressed to the women that nothing was happening. They prayed some more, and stayed with me until I got a breakthrough… and boy, did I ever. It was like a dam broke. I felt this love reaching down to me that was so sweet and so pure. It reminded me of when I was a baby and my mother was holding me. There is no way in my mind that I could have remembered that. It was pure, unconditional love. My walls of resistance came down and I was able to feel the love of God for the first time!

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“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.” — 1 John 4:18

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That moment left such a powerful impression on me that when I try to tell people about it, there are just no words to describe it. So, I wrote a song about it called Sweet Love. Take a listen!

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“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” — Jeremiah 31:3