My imagination has to be kept in constant check, or it can travel to places that are not emotionally safe. When I am feeling strong resentment toward another person, my imagination slips into high gear and starts traveling through the rugged terrain of bitter images. I start creating vivid images in my mind of what I would like to do to the person whom I feel resentment toward. This of course is never a good course of action.

A friend shared the following quote yesterday. It serves as a great emotional travel warning, when our minds are tempted to travel down the slippery slope of resentment. “Harboring resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” When I allow my imagination to entertain bitter thoughts toward another person that is precisely what I am doing.

I want to react strongly to that quote! I want to say: But you just don’t know what I can do to that other person in the recesses of my mind. My brain travels very rapidly. It can take create enough punishment for the offender to last them a lifetime. Those thoughts have nothing to do with taking poison!

During my rational moments I realize that I might as well drink battery acid. Resentment and the accompanying bitterness are indeed corrosive. Our hearts become so saturated with poison that we can no longer think creatively or altruistically.

I am going to choose to abandon the resentment trips. There are too many other mind trips I would rather take. Yesterday my imagination fired up an image of me serenading Jan with the Alan Jackson song entitled: “I Only Want You for Christmas.” Perhaps it would be best just for me to park my imagination and close the door…