A few years after World War II-

-a Christian Japanese boy at a public speaking contest announced that his subject would be:

“The Sacredness of Work.”

Some people smiled at his choice, but when they heard his story, their smiles turned to tears.

His parents and home were burned to ashes in the atomic bomb explosion at Nagasaki.

He was the eldest of three surviving children, and together they knelt in the ashes of their home and prayed to know what to do.

One of them said: “I know – we forgive, forget but can work.”

So they set to work, gathering bits of tin and boards.

Soon they had built a little hut in which to live.

They could have nursed their grudge and become gloomy.

Instead they forgave, forgot, and went to work.

No one who wants to maintain spiritual freshness-

– can afford to nurse a grudge.

It will poison both spirit and body.

Grudges put the whole physical and mental system-

– on a war basis instead of on a peace basis!

I know of a man who killed himself inch by inch-

-simply by thinking of nothing but hatred for a relative who had sued him.

Within a year or two he was dead.

A grudge is a-

-sand in your socks!

-stain in your soul!!

If we are to maintain spiritual freshness-

We must determine to forgive everyone who hurts us and refuse to nurse a grudge.

“I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.

Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?” (Matt.18:32-33).