The cement story

I heard a story a while back.
There was a man in a foreign country who ran a successful cement manufacturing plant. The government in that country changed hands and the plant was taken from its owner and given to a friend of the new ruler of that country. This new owner had never been in the cement business before, but business was good. No one knew the previous owner had employed a worker whose sole job was to sweep the cement off the roof of all the plant buildings. And so, every day a thin layer of cement dust accumulated on the rooftops. In the mornings, the dew fell and hardened the cement. The next day, the dust fell, the dew hardened, and so on. Then one day, the roof could not withstand the tremendous weight of the cement on the roof. The roof collapsed and all the machinery was ruined. The business was lost.

Bitterness is like that. Day after day, anger falls and bitterness hardens it until, one day like the roof, it all comes crashing down.

God, give us the broom of forgiveness. Amen.