Words Can Never Hurt Me? Really?

We had a great conversation yesterday morning at The Free Store about the power of our words. Words can actually wound and heal, build and destroy. Our friend George shared about how his father could be very abusive and harsh with words and as he spoke I noticed a lot of heads around the room nodding in sad agreement. As a kid I remember my mom used to say, "Paul you are enough to make a preacher cuss, and I ain't no preacher!" And I knew to prepare to have my ears singed (bless her heart).

So we intuitively and through personal and often painful experiences know that words are powerful so we try to protect ourselves from their power. We say things like "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me" which we know isn't really true. But that is our way of trying to minimize the harmful power of all the damaging words we have both heard and spoken.

We also talked about how difficult, if not impossible, it is to control our words. We agreed that the tongue is a very unruly part of the anatomy! And it can get us into a whole lot of trouble in short order. But we can tap into a power greater than ourselves and gain self-control if we want. The Genesis story tells us that God created the world through speech. That same story tells us that we are made in the image of God so we felt empowered knowing the incredible power of our words to create new and beautiful things in our lives, our families, and our communities.

George ended our discussion by encouraging us to use the power of our words to heal rather than harm, to bless rather than curse, to create rather destroy.

Go ahead, create something beautiful with your words today! As Nike says, "Just Do It."