NTOO- Not The Only One !
Post# 16
WORDS!!
Howdy!
And once again welcome aboard. This morning during my group time, God laid a conviction on me about my words. During the introduction, I went on the record as to saying that I’m a believer. This blog has a broad audience, and for the benefit of my readers, I often go down the middle of the road in my perspectives, so that I may reach the maximum number of people. I will further try to explain this, by saying if I’m in the spiritual camp only or exclusively, then I will loose a large portion of my audience. The opposite is true as well, if I have a worldly view predominantly, then those who profess to walk by faith instead of by sight , may have push back, or struggle to make the connection. They will often forget what it was like before they started their journey with God. This blog is intended to reach out to people who may think that Christians have it all together, or are holier-than-thou, but the truth is we are just people who are forgiven and choose to experience God’s grace and allow Him to walk out His purposes in our lives and the reality of what a struggle that can be from day to day.
We have all heard about the power of the pen, and the words that they produce. There are a ton of cliches about words and I’m sure that I will hit on a few of them . First of all let me cover the one about sticks and stones, may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. If you were raised under this one as I was, then you know it is something that your mother shared with you to help you through a rough patch with a bully, or some other unkind person, which hurled ugly words in your direction, hell, I don’t know, it may have very well been your mother, and if that is the case, then I’m sorry for you. The point being as you get older, you know some of the most painful things and experiences come from or through our words….yes there have been times when you were unkind as well, and yes, its still just as relevant, when you say it behind their backs. In the book of James, he gives us some powerful insight into the power of the tongue. Every day we have the opportunity to build up or to destroy with the things that come forth from our mouths. We can bless our children and others with our words or we can curse them. I believe for a lot of us or most of us, we don’t give it a second thought or much consideration as to the damage that we do with our words. I am more aware of it, but I can honestly say that in moments of anger or frustration, that tends to go right out the window. And I gave a prime example of that a post or so ago with Ms. Annomuis. If you can’t even admit to yourself that you have said something harmful just to make yourself feel better in a situation , than you should probably check yourself for a pulse, or see if there is something mechanical going on in the place where your heart use to be. I know that for myself, it’s a continuous choice to remember that I don’t always have to be right. There is a huge difference between the sexes and how they use words . It’s not that men can’t be cunning and disruptive with their words , but they don’t have it down to a precise art form. I know that I will take heat for that statement, but if the women out there are honest, they know that more times than not, they have a way of making you feel like a julian fry, all sliced and diced. I always assume this was God’s way of balancing things out. Men are usually, not always, stronger than women physically, but women have three to four times as many words as men do, and are much more capable of turning those words into weapons of mass destruction. If you gave a guy the option of getting beat up or getting into a verbal altercation with a woman, I think most of us would prefer the butt whipping. At least you know that is something that you would heal from down the road, but those cutting words and phrases have a much longer and lasting impact. It’s like most things in life, if we are on top, then we believe ourselves to be winning, but that is not necessarily the case. If we can put others down, then it takes the spotlight off of us and our own dysfunction. This post isn’t about the battle of the sexes, but our words. I dare say that there are some of you out there who have very deep scars going back to your childhood and unfortunately from a parent, who should have been about nurturing and protecting, but probably due to some poor parenting that they received as a child themselves has duplicated the process on to you. I remember first hand some of the things that my mom said in her frustration dealing with a mainly boy squad at the house , when we were growing up. I’m not telling you that I was a perfect parent and that I didn’t make some of the same mistakes, but what I am saying is that , I was much more aware and conscious as to how I used my words, and maybe the biggest take away was not to have six kids😀. Just because we didn’t get the best parenting , that doesn’t excuse us from not raising the bar and doing a better job with the next generation. We don’t get a pass or elevated from personal responsibility. If you talk to enough people, you will find this to be one of the major hurdles or hang-ups about a relationship with God. They didn’t have that growing up, so the concept of a loving father is foreign to them. The other one is , if there is a God, how did He let certain things go on , that happened to me, when I was just a little kid, and we will try to dive more into that in another post down the road. The words that we use have far reaching ramifications, I have gone on the record again about love being a choice that you make. So for those of you who have heard the words that, ” I don’t love you anymore”, ouch!, and yes painful and I would challenge the thought process that they ever loved you in the first place. My ex wife and I have been divorced for almost a dozen years, but I still love her, its not a romantic love, but she is first and foremost the mother of my kids and I would never wish ill upon her, or not wish her success and happiness. While we didn’t work things out, the words that I don’t love you anymore never came across my mind or my lips, because first of all that would have been a lie, but there were definitely days that I wasn’t to fond of her. I know that there are those “A” type personalities out there, who are saying well ” it’s just the truth” , and I have found myself there as well before. If I have got this correctly, we are supposed to speak words of truth in love, which means that you don’t just get to dump your version of truth on them without thinking about how your words will be received or interpreted, or impacted on their lives. Again, most of us like being right in our discussions with other people ,whether that is a light chat, or a full blown argument. We have to remember that truth needs to be softened by love sometimes, and that love may need to be strengthen with truth. Words can be powerful and impressive, but they can also be fake and phony as well. I believe that most of us have encountered those individuals who lack character, well at least good character anyway. I believe that you should say what you mean, and mean what you say. This may be something that has gone out of favor with the turn of the last century. In the age of social media and people seeking to get as many likes as possible, people don’t always mean the words that come out of their mouths. We are big boys and girls here, so we understand that sex and orgasms is not equivalence of love. And if you have not made that distinction, please seek help as soon as possible. I know that there are people out there who will say anything to get what they want out of other people, and unfortunately their words hold very little meaning or sincerity. They say things that they don’t mean, and their lack of good judgment, leads to the wounding of others. Once again, I may be a little of track, but you can’t be surprised by that at this point. Let’s see if we can wrap this up. I think many times we would benefit from holding our tongue. Think of it as that angry email you typed up for your boss telling him what a jerk he can be at times. If you are smart, you let it sit in your drafts and think about it before you hit send, it’s the prudent thing to do. And I get that many times our damaging words come with heated emotions or some bitter resentment. Stop!! Just for a second and ask yourself , is what you are about to say going to be helpful?, or are you throwing gasoline on some heated embers. Is it necessary,? does it need to be said in the first place.?. And is it true?. and if it is , are you speaking it in love?. And finally, think about the outcome of what you are about to say. No, we don’t always know what other people’s reactions and response will be, but was it said with the hope of some kind of reproof or improvement in the situation, and if your answer is a healthy…not so much!, then you should probably refrain and just keep those words to yourself. We all use words every day, let’s use them wisely. I have been on all sides of this, I’m sure that we all have if we take a second and think about it. I have said and used words that I later regretted, because it hurt someone, and sometimes, someone whom I love. And I have also been on the other side of receiving unkind words, or people saying meaningless words to me that carried no merit, because they didn’t mean what they said. We all have relationships in our lives, be it with our kids, parents and other family, friends, work associates, or people we just meet in our day to day in the market place. In these relationships we need to be kind and thoughtful, especially when it comes to the use of our words.
Until next time ✌️
Sandy the Southerner
