As I mentioned on a Facebook post at the beginning of the year, my words for 2025 are “Different” and “Why not?” With a full-time job, hopefully a new PhD program coming up in August, and a change in church campuses, my life looks and will look different than it did last year. Not better. Not worse. Just different. Hopefully in a good way.
My church always begins the new year with a 21-day fast. This year, I fasted from sugar. Not sweets—sugar, specifically any sugar that’s been added to foods or drinks. Since my sugar-free coffee creamer actually has a tiny bit of sugar in it (according to what’s printed on the carton), I drank my morning decaf coffee black during this fast. Eating fruits with natural sweetness was OK, but eating any kind of food with added sugars was something that I avoided for the fast. This was hard to do because, as my constant consulting of nutrition labels showed, sugar is added to nearly everything, not just desserts—ketchup, peanut butter, soy sauce, even sliced bread. But God impressed on me that there were some added-sugar foods that I wouldn’t be able to avoid (such as economically priced bread for my sandwiches), so it was OK to eat those during the fast.
As per usual, my fast wasn’t about the food or the action of not eating something; God intended my fast to be symbolic. (Although, as you may notice, it wasn’t an exact metaphor.) When I would wash down my breakfast with a cup of bitter coffee, God impressed on me that He wanted to be the One to add sweetness to my bitterness. So, every morning during the fast while I was dreading chugging that awful stuff down, I would ask God to add some sweetness to the bitterness in my life. As the 21 days progressed, I got used to the taste.
God also reminded me that not every bitter situation is my fault, and not all of them can be avoided (which was symbolized in my fast by me not being able to avoid all of the added sugar in my foods). If you find yourself in abusive environments, but you don’t know any better, you can’t always help it. Or if you’re stuck in a horrible job that you’re having trouble leaving, because you gotta pay rent, you can’t always avoid the unfair treatment you’ll receive or the insults you’ll experience.
Here’s one example of God needing to add some sweetness to some bitterness. If you followed my blog about 11 or 12 years ago, you might remember me complaining about my job at the time. (I tried to look for another job but couldn’t find a suitable replacement until about 6 months after I was terminated.) I wasn’t just being a baby; I was legitimately miserable there. To give you an idea of how I was treated, I’ll give you a little glimpse into my time there.
I was a staff writer at a place that was magical and appreciated my creativity, but then they got bought out by a bigger company that brought some corporate toxins into the workplace. My work was edited with Microsoft Word comments. I would read those comments, but I wish I hadn’t, because the editors would have conversations with each other in the comments about how bad my writing was, as if I couldn’t read what they were saying about me. I felt like it was unprofessional. Our manager, being the corporate-America person that she was, asked us during a team meeting how they could improve the team, or something like that. Y’all know me; I’m a witty leader. Instead of keeping my mouth shut, which in retrospect I probably should have, I said that it would be great if the editors would be more professional with their comments on our writing, instead of writing something like [my paraphrase] “What was Tirzah thinking?”
Fast-forward to my performance review sometime later—the review that put me on probation. My manager cheerfully read my review, which included the statement, “Tirzah doesn’t think before she writes,” which I believed to be taking my witty meeting comments out of context. Those words burned into my soul and have haunted me ever since. Years later, I mentioned this to a professor who assured me that I actually do put a lot of thought into my writing.
Fast-forward to several months ago to when I was applying to PhD programs. I took a Friday off to apply and write a required essay. I was working emotionally through something, I don’t remember what it was, but I felt angry and was discouraged because anger wasn’t the right mindset to write a college admissions essay. But God encouraged me to use that anger and passionately write my essay, anyway. I did, and the dean read my story and told the admissions department to admit me. Mental note: sometimes God takes bad situations away, but other times He wants you to use them so that He can turn them into something good, Romans 8:28-style.
Fast-forward to a couple of recent weekends when I sat down to write my master’s thesis. For some reason, I’ve struggled this semester with thesis writing, but I haven’t really struggled with any kind of writing since I left that job I described above. Why? It’s basically just a giant research paper, right? But it’s been like a weird fear thing. I’ve been psyching myself up and rearranging my homework routine so I can have some extended times to write, but I’ve been doubting myself and my ability to write an entire thesis in one semester with everything else I have on my plate. I had written only a few pages over the span of a few weeks, so I was concerned.
But God has been encouraging me, and He reminded me that I write well when I write with passion. So, I remembered that “Tirzah doesn’t think before she writes” comment one Sunday, and I thought about writing it on a piece of paper and taping it in my living room where I could easily see it. Then I didn’t like the idea of that comment staring at me in the face when it was already burning in my soul. So, I let it light a fire under me. Oh, yeah? You don’t think I think before I write? You just watch. I’ve been thinking up a storm. So, I wrote up a storm that day. Boom, sweet progress, and I haven’t looked back.
So, that’s one example of God adding sweetness to the bitterness in my life. I look forward to seeing Him do more stuff like that this year, whether it’s suddenly or whether it’s a longer process.
“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” (Matthew 5:43–44 NLT)
I wonder if maybe the above teaching was one of Jesus’ ways of weaving some sweetness into bitter situations. Someone hates you? Pray for them. Someone persecutes you unfairly? Pray for them and ask God to give them favor in everything they do. Someone is just a jerk to you in general all the time? Pray that God would bless them, their marriage, their family, and their finances. Then move on with your life as best you can, and allow God to keep healing you whenever the memories are brought to mind. And don’t forget to embrace the people who love you all the more closely.
Praying for someone who disses you is like adding sweetener to a bitter cup of coffee—or maybe like God adding a tree or a piece of wood to the bitter waters of Marah (see Exodus 15:22–25a). It helps you bear a bitter situation without you yourself becoming an unbearably bitter person.
And, of course, prayer isn’t a simple cure or formula to every situation. Sometimes you just need to stay close to God, pour out your heart to Him (especially when you’re miserable), and trust Him to sweeten the bitter parts of your life. Whether you’re mistreated by an employer, or whether you’re insulted by a professor during an admissions interview, or whether society just won’t shut up about your being single during a holiday that was designed for couples—as if you needed a man to validate your very existence—God can make it different by adding some sweetness to it. Why not?
