I’m not really sure where it came from. Looking back, I think that it probably snuck into the car while the door was open. Maybe it was in my coat and I stalked out that Sunday morning that the preacher made me so mad. Actually, it could have been in the baby’s bag. Yeah, it was in the baby’s bag because we left in such a hurry when that guy made the announcement “Hey, if you’ve got a crying baby you can take it to the nursery or the cry room.”

The truth is that it could have come from just about anywhere. Maybe it got in my wallet when they announced the special contribution and I closed it so fast. Maybe I brought it home inside my Bible. Yeah, it would have had a long time to grow undisturbed in my Bible! I don’t open my Bible at home because I’m so “busy”. Maybe it was in my mask. Or maybe it followed me home because I wasn’t wearing a mask. Maybe, just maybe, it came home because I invited it home.

I really can’t tell where it came from. Nonetheless, I ended up carrying this little grudge home with me. And it seemed pretty cute at the time. It made me feel special. It made me feel important. That little grudge that I brought home with me only focused on my feelings. But what I didn’t know at the time was that the little grudge would eat so well! In fact, it ate so well that the little grudge was basically easy to feed. It fed on the slightest things. Almost like it was just looking for something to keep it alive. And boy did it grow fast! In fact, it got to be such that I would end up missing services just to stay home to tend to my little grudge.

I never really told anybody about my grudge, I just sort of kept it. And I held, nurtured, and fed it. And after a few weeks, my grudge was so important to me that I just quit going to church altogether. I mean there was nothing that anybody could do anyway. If someone came to see me my grudge would feed on the fact that they were judging us and that they brought to our house that “holier than thou” attitude. You see, my little grudge can see things that aren’t even there. If no one came to see me, my grudge would digest that as isolation from them. They don’t care about you anyway! I told you my grudge can see things that aren’t there.

I never thought that taking that little grudge home with me could turn into such a mess. But by this time, I no longer owned it but it owned me. If I hadn’t allowed it to feed or if I’d have exposed it to the light it might have just gone away. As it is, I think it was fed so much and got so big that it had to molt. And once it got really hard and dead on the outside, it just sat there for a few days and when it emerged from that hard shell, I think my little grudge had turned into resentment. Now the resentment that permeates my house has cost me my soul, the soul of my wife, the soul of my little ones. And it all started when I carried home a little grudge.

-Written By:
Lonnie Jones