Words will Never Hurt Me

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” I remember saying that as a child and even then thinking that it really didn’t make sense. I knew words hurt. I remember sticking my tongue out at someone in fourth grade and the awful feeling I had in my stomach because I knew what I did was wrong and was hurtful. I’m sorry Dena.

Sometimes a person might say something to me about someone else that isn’t very nice. Many times I know the person they are talking about because we’ve visited about life stuff. So when a comment is made I just want to say, “If you only know what their heart is like. What they’ve been through”.

We make so many unfair assumptions about people we really don’t know. Makes my heart hurt. Ephesians 4:29 tells us we are to build each other up to minister grace to the hearers. The word grace there means “joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness, goodwill, lovingkindness”.

When is the last time you spoke joy to someone? How about sweetness?

I get so tired of hearing bad things come out of people’s mouths. Or when you walk up they stop talking because they don’t want you to hear what they are saying. Chances are they aren’t speaking grace over someone.

I was cleaning up my inbox in my email the other day and came across an email from Brandi about the power of the tongue. Proverbs 18 says that death and life are in the power of the tongue. We don’t realize how powerful our words are. If we are not speaking life (grace) over a person, we are speaking death. Scares me a little bit. How many times, intentional or unintentional, have I spoken death over someone. It may seem like what I say is not hurtful but sometimes it cuts right to the heart. Whoa.

We always, always, always have to think about being a reflection of Jesus. Philippians 2 tells us that He became a servant. He humbled himself. Having a true sense of humility means you recognize the sense of your littleness.

If we are truly a reflection of our humble Jesus, we will speak life. Speak grace. To our husband, our children, our co-workers, our fellow believers.