Holding a Grudge

My upbringing was in a family, that was full of chronic grudge holders and I'm not talking about staying mad or not speaking for a couple days. Some of these relatives (most of them being women) wouldn't associate with someone else in the family, for over fifty years! As a little kid, I had no concept of what this was all about. One of the stories that was repeated over and over again, 'They went on a picnic and didn't invite me to go!' Good grief, now is that something worth forfeiting years of togetherness over? Even as a small child I remember thinking, 'I wonder what else happened, to cause this upset.' Missing out on a picnic didn't seem to be a total reason, causing a person to harbor pain for that long. Still, this is only one example of these familiar displays of unforgiveness and grudge holding. Also, petty issues are quite often blown way out of proportion. They usually get a little bit worse, each time the sad occurence is hashed over and relived so many times.
The Bible speaks clearly to us about the damage caused, by not forgiving those who have knowingly or in other cases unknowingly, said or did something to cause us injury. I believe in many situations, the other individual has no idea they did anything wrong. Maybe a misinterpretation of another's words or deeds, then again, maybe they just plain humanly, forgot! We are all guilty of doing these things, either hearing wrong or we forget to do something, with no intent whatsoever to cause any harm. The worst part about this, the person who's staying angry for any length of time, isn't hurting anyone else as much as they are hurting them self. Their insides are wrenched with anxiety, that will continually erodes their personality. This eventually turns them into a bitter, angry individual who's never satisfied. When you make attempts in some little way to help manufacture some happiness, they will always find fault with it. Being upset gets to be an 'etched in stone habit', that is extremely hard to break. Seeing everything from a negative point of view, makes them miserable, beyond belief.
Yet, looking for something positive in life has some very surprising results. What we are striving to find, is exactly what we will see! Seeking out positive things in this world takes a lot of hard work, after training one's mind to follow a negative thought pattern for so many years. But, with God all things are possible, if we will only believe and then be willing to change our direction. It's never to late to go a different way, until the day we draw our last breath in this world!