Fruit of forgiveness

If you’ve ever battled bitterness
Then you know it runs deep

In knarls and knots.
The roots, they will keep

You as long as they can,
For gradual they came

And long will remain,
Until love for the Son

Drives out the dark
And makes you long for the light.

He gives courage to
Grant Him permission to cut

Deep down at the roots
And pull out the growth,

Chip by chop, up they come,
Up from the ground

Of your raw soul, still
A’shivering and quaking

For painful the breaking
Of who you thought you were.

Gentle He gathers and tender
He binds up jagged wounds

And slow He renews
The creation you were,

Before bitterness came
And choked out the love

And in the soil soft folds,
Seeds - a new kind of tree

With fruit of forgiveness
And worship to see

And you’ll soft tell your story,
How He drew you with glory

And dug out the roots
Of sick bitter pain

And planted the freedom
Which you now herald long,

For because of His wounding
The bitterness is

Gone.

“For He wounds, but He binds up; He shatters, but His hands heal” (Job 5:18).

“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).