They say sticks and stones...but this isn't exaclty true. In fact, it really disproves itself in that the very rhyme is a sort of incantation designed to immunize us against verbal attack.
I wield words better than average. Many people have said so. I'm not sure if it is true, but I know that I have an ability to see into people and can find just the right words to cut to the heart. I have used this power of words wrongly many times. I try to keep it in check and only use it to graze the skin when someone begins to push far beyond reasonable limits in jest or in bravado.
I would much rather use it for good. To build up. I would rather practice correct speech, saying nothing except what is absolutely necessary. But this is difficult in our pop-off chattery world. I speak much folly.
Recently, I commented something that I thought valuable in a forum where others could hear. I was responding to something a friend had said. But later that person came to me angry and using surprisingly hurtful words about my inability to perceive intent and discern the appropriate time to say things. Of course, in the context, I could tell that my friend was upset that I had, in his mind, openly ruined his point, which was to encourage another without pointing that person out (thus he had not addressed his comment to them), though that was not my intent. I wanted to respond. I wanted to defend my statement as true and valid and point out the flaws in his attempt in that context...It was far too open to misdirection...and afterall, I had a right to say what I pleased, whether he liked it or not. And as I began heating up in my mind, the invective began to flow. I found myself driving the vebal knife deeper into the gaping chinks in his self image. If I were only to open my mouth I could wound him with valid and personal observations such that the scar would take years to heal. He did not realize who he was dealing with! And I had checked my responses to similar pricks from him in the past out of respect. It was time to bring this guy down a few pegs! But I didn't.
For once in my life, I held my tongue and let the steam boil off slowly. I let the scratch he had inflicted bleed and eventually clot. I remembered a recent teaching I had heard about Abraham choosing peace when Lot owed him everything and dared to allow his men to quarrel with Abraham's. I want to choose peace. I want to bear the scratch as my own. Afterall, I'm sure somewhere in his anger there might be truth.
Having the power to vindicate myself and choosing not to...this is definitely not my nature...evidence that in some small way, I am being conformed to Christ.
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