Does a Grudge have an expiration date?

My house currently resembles a thick tangled jungle. We are potentially going to get our first frost of the season this week. Since one of my greatest passions is growing things, mainly plants, I had to face the daunting task of moving my precious plants inside.  Many can survive in the barn throughout the winter as it is heated to 45 degrees. However, most of my plants prefer the warmer temperatures of the house.  So one of my daughter’s helped me lug tons of plants to their winter homes. They need to be distributed through the house according to how much light they need. I had planned on doing that today but I had a more pressing task.

My food pantry was literally so disorganized and things were falling and I reached the end of my tolerance! So amidst the jungle, I began pulling stuff out of the pantry. My house is now so messy I could easily call the police and report that someone has ransacked my house! As I surveyed the huge mess I had created I sighed in frustration. Was it possible to actually clean this disaster? I read a quote the other day that came to mind “the elevator to success is out of order-you have to take the stairs, one step at a time.” Yes that was good advice and I needed some at the moment.

I began sorting the cake mixes, canned goods, pasta by expiration date. Wow how could so much stuff get shoved to the back? As I searched for expiration dates I began to ponder how many of our lives have produced attitudes that have expiration dates? Does a grudge have a date at which it expires? Does it ever go away without an apology? Does anything wrong we have ever done just go away? A lie? An unkind word? Taking credit for someone else’s work? Not giving 100 percent in a relationship or a job? Wow the list in my mind just kept growing. I surveyed the pile of expired food. It no longer had a use and needed to be discarded.

Our grudges, lies, negativity………..no longer have a use and need to be discarded too. Sometimes it’s so hard to go and apologize, maybe even for something that happened years ago. The wonderful thing is that when you do, something amazing happens in your heart. You are set free! The person might even still be angry towards you but your conscience  is now clear before God and His forgiveness brings peace and freedom. My pantry is now clean and organized. That’s how I want my heart to be before God. It took a lot of work to clean the pantry, it takes work to clean and maintain our hearts also.

I have had to apologize for things that people didn’t even remember the offense. It was still necessary for me to rid that clutter from my heart and go on rejoicing that I had made it right.