Proverbs 18:21
“The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”
Do you have a household chore that you absolutely detest? I’m talking you’d rather watch paint dry than complete this particular job. For me, it’s unloading the dishwasher. Actually, for everyone residing in this household- unloading the dishwasher seems to win this dubious prize. Most mornings begin with this chore. One Saturday morning began with such promise. Pancakes with blueberries, almond milk, and an incredibly blue sky outside our kitchen window. I opened the dishwasher and pulled out the top rack. Does anyone else have coffee mugs that seem to mate during the rinse cycle? Where on earth we collected all these dispensers of caffeine I will never know. I reached up high to put a travel mug away and in slow motion it bounced off the shelf, onto the counter, and clumsily bumped into my Matcha tea bowl. (This tea bowl will be discussed in future blog posts). The glass Matcha bowl fell to the floor and shattered. It was an impressive sound and pieces large and small rippled out from the vicinity of the dishwasher.
My husband is an engineer, so when objects shatter, he is all over it. With shop vac in hand, he devises a highly systematic way of cleaning up broken glass. As I moved our kitchen chairs out from under the table, it struck me that our words are a lot like these pieces of glass. Words can spill forth from our mouths, unintentionally bumping into the people around us. If only we could hold the syllables in for just a few more minutes, perhaps they would evaporate before having ever been launched at those we love.
I noticed that while my Matcha bowl shattered within inches of our dishwasher, there were tiny shards of glass several feet away near our basement door. Our words- both good and bad- are not static. They ripple out- leaving traces behind, in front of, and next to those people in our path. We’ve all done it- uttered a phrase that we immediately wish we could take back. Chances are you have also been on the receiving end of someone’s verbal grenades. And then, there are those people who speak a word of truth into our lives in such a gracious, loving manner that we often pull their words up from our memory banks. We love to just rest in the warmth of those words, to savor their encouragement and the love they bring.
So how do we become people who utter ripples of hope, rather than waterfalls of shame and regret? I am trying out the 3 P’s:
- PAUSE: Activate that internal Pause Button. Count to 60- or longer if necessary- before speaking. This is hard. Go ahead- try it. It gets easier with time. Try singing a refrain from your favorite song inside your head. It also helps while pausing, to look at the person you are about to offer words to. I mean really look at them. Ponder what you think you see in their eyes. Is it Pain? Rejection? Disappointment? Anger? Fear? Gazing at the person, rather than merely glancing at them can guide your speech.
- PRAY: You will need to surrender control of your mouth to The Holy Spirit. Do not utter a syllable until you feel Him directing your words. I often find this happens in the most amazing way. I offer my words to someone and think to myself, “Who said that? Where did that come from?” They certainly aren’t words I am capable of crafting on my own.
- PLANT: Use your words to plant seeds. Seeds of Hope, Encouragement, Truth, Comfort. Remind yourself that you are not responsible for the harvest- merely the planting.
The next morning my husband came upstairs to give me a kiss goodbye as he headed off to work. He warned me to be careful. When he picked his books up from the kitchen table, he found several tiny remnants of glass hiding between one title and the next. Words- just like shattered glass- can hide dormant for years. So, let’s bring our words out into the Light- and expose them for both their goodness and their ability to wound others. In the Light, we can pause, pray, and plant.
Father God,
Help me remember to “watch my mouth.” Teach me that a soft answer turns away wrath and can bind a wound, mend a heart, and lighten a soul.
Amen.