Watching The Words We Speak

By Paula Pinto

Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.

We know we ought to watch our words, but so frequently we find ourselves saying things that come attached with a “heaviness” and what I mean by that is that we often feel the burden of the words we speak. If we are not careful, we can speak things into our life that we ought not to be feeling. I sometimes have a habit of doing this. For instance, I’ve been challenged with some trying allergies this season, and my friend and I joke and call it “fog head.” The feelings associated with allergies can sometimes leave you feeling disoriented or for lack of better words, it’s sometimes like the weight of the world landed on your head.  Lately at the onset of day when my allergies are somewhat severe I’ll call him or vice versa and say “it’s one of those fog head days,” and most often either him or I will agree that we are feeling the same. Yet, this morning when I woke up and felt uncomfortable and stuffed up from allergy symptoms, although I wanted to call my friend and say…”it’s one of those days again, get ready because there’s major fog head up ahead,” and while I knew he’d probably just laugh at the comment, I refrained from doing so. Reason being, I am noticing more and more that we tend to feel what we speak to a greater extent. Now by no means am I saying that you shouldn’t share your feelings with a friend or loved one when you are going through something, absolutely not, but if you find yourself repeating the same things or saying things that may have an effect on someone else, then we ought to refrain from saying it because we will eat the fruit or offer it to others from the words we speak.

For the example I gave above, I chose to be rather vague, but on a greater note, sometimes we can say things either out of anger, hurt, resentment, or simply just kidding around and our words can have a lasting impact on someone else. Whoever said, “sticks and stones will break my bones but words were never harm me,” obviously was never told something that could crush their spirit. On the other hand, I have encountered some words during my time that had left me feeling like “why would someone say such a thing?” and I’ve heard others tell me stories of things people have said to them that they’ve never forgotten. In fact, some have attached those words to when they describe their self worth or talk about areas of their life where their self esteem has been crushed.

I learned something which has been very influential in life from a minister who I highly respect, and he taught me how to try to eliminate some of the words I use when I explain some of the things the cause me anxiety. I use to say “I can’t do that because it makes me afraid or it’s too hard for me to even try,” and I’ve learned to replace that with “I am challenged to do this or that…” Reason being, he explained that it would be ridiculous to say that something doesn’t scare you if it does, but if I say that I am “challenged” with a fear of it, well “challenges” we can overcome. The first description of an event can leave me powerless but the second enables me to feel that while it may be “challenging” I can work at doing this.

I pray that we will become more conscious of the words we speak to others as well as to ourselves. That we will continually speak words that will bring forth “life” and that we can spread that message with others who have been inflicted by words. I also pray that we will not define ourselves by what people have said, but rather by what the word of God has to say about us.