Be Uplifting

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless." - Mother Theresa

Something that my heart has been focused on lately  is our speech. Our words.  The way we talk to people. The way we talk to our family, co-workers, friends, and other people we encounter.
It absolutely incredible (and maybe a little scary) the authority we have in our speech. In Psalm 18:21 it says that life and death are in the power of the tongue! what??
That is ALOT of responsibility. We have the divine ability to tear down OR lift people up just in the way we talk to one another.

I know for myself if someone says a cruel or rude thing to me.... it could ruin my whole day! BUT when someone encourages me or compliments me... it could uplift me for the whole week.

When we name call, talk down to someone, be short with them, or talk out of hurt or anger... we are ultimately bringing out death on someone. death! not living! dead! When we think about it in those terms it can definitely change your attitude about being rude.
On the other hand when we encourage, uplift, speak softly, and compliment one another... we bring them to a place of life. We lift their spirits up. (: Who doesn't want to do that?

Now i know we aren't perfect! I am certainly not!!! There are times when we get angry and our lips just can't stop the horrid words that come out. The Bible (Ephesians 4:26 ) says to be angry and sin not.... but again, we are not perfect. We NEED a Savior.

But lets be aware of our speech. The words we say to one another. In all we do lets speak uplifting and encouraging words. Even when we are sooo angry and we want to call the person who cut us off in traffic a blankety-blank. Even when our loved ones hurt us sooo bad and upset us so much we want to yell at them and call them bleep bleep. Lets take a step back and remember that our tongue carries power.

This is something i realized this morning. The words i may choose to say (or YELL) at someone that would bring about death, i would HATE for someone else to say it to the person. Here is a hypothetical example. If someone got really really angry at my Fiance and called him a bleeping bleep and told him he was dumb and stupid and smelled..... i would be IRATE! I would be sooo upset that someone would say that to this man that i love. So WHY do i feel like its okay to say these things when I am the one who is mad.

Its not okay.

So... i am going to try my hardest to speak life and no longer death. When i am angry and my initial reaction is to say something hurtful... i will take the extra moment to calm myself down and remind myself that i can either speak life or death in this moment. It will be a challenge... but the people around me are soo worth it! (:

speaking life and love, - M

♥ . ♥ . ♥ .