I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. John 14:27a
Hatred is heavy. And the longer you carry it, the more it weighs.
A man in Russia quarreled with his father at age twenty and stopped speaking to him for years. “I hate my father because he insulted me,” Sergey shared. “But this hatred is destroying me from the inside. I can’t live like this. But I also can’t reconcile with him.” As Sergey listened to biblical devotionals online, he started to understand, for the first time, what that bitterness was doing to him.
Gulbarchin lives in Kyrgyzstan, caring for her sick mother. The weight of this season turned her, in her own words, into “an unpleasant woman, full of anger and even hate.” Bitterness rarely announces itself. It settles in quietly through old wounds, exhaustion, and injustice no one ever acknowledged. Jesus knew this about the human heart. On the night before his death he said, “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give” (John 14:27). The Bible tells of the God who is “the source of all hope,” that fills us with joy and peace when we surrender our lives to Him (Romans 15:13). This is not a peace we can manufacture—it’s a peace God fills us with.
Sergey is still in the middle of his story. But Gulbarchin has already felt something shift. She says, “There is an indescribable peace. It calms me down and fills my heart. It must be from God.” Two people. Different circumstances. The same slow destruction happening within—until the same unexpected source of healing reached them both: the message that God’s peace is stronger than bitterness.
You can help send this message of God’s peace to others around the world who are struggling with bitterness—in their own language. Give a gift today at guidelines.org.
