Sticks and stones.

It never ceases to amaze me how much power ones words hold. We can lift each other up or tear someone down, all with the words we speak. With our mouth we can say things we shouldn’t, we hurt others, and then we pay the consequences for what we’ve said. Our words cannot be taken back after we’ve said them, we can only say that we are sorry and hope that we are forgiven.

Recently I was wounded by some words that were spoken to me. The words hurt for two reasons. First, they were just simply unkind things being spoken to me, second, they came from someone who is close to me, someone I love. (I just want to let everyone know, it was not my husband :))

The thing is, it took only seconds for those words to be spoken, but now they are seared into my heart, and its going to take a long time for me to forget them. I prayed about this last night, I felt the Lord prompting me to forgive, which I have, but even with the forgiveness, the hurt is still there. That nagging rawness of my heart, the hurt I am feeling has got me thinking about MY words, and how I speak to my loved ones.

I want to take something from this experience and turn it around and bring something positive out of it. I do not want to spew venom, I want to speak words of love and acceptance. Imagine if every time we opened out mouths we spoke words that were laced with healing, edification, encouragement, comfort, wisdom, love and truth. The bible talks about that in Philippians 4:8, we are supposed to think about things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy.

That is what I want, that is the kind of legacy I want to leave my children. A legacy of love, encouragement, wisdom, and truth. A legacy of kind and uplifting words.

I will leave you all with a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne.

"Words- so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become, in the hands of one who knows how to combine them!"