Sticks and stones….

Carrying on from yesterday, I drug out several Bible and pulled up commentaries and it felt like old times. 

Didn’t realize how much I missed digging into thoughts and questions that keep me stirring.

While I really got a lot out of the sermon I shared in yesterday’s post (https://www.laurareimer.net/monday-and-a-little-reflection-on-bowls-super-and-fruit-variety/), and while I totally can apply it and learn from it and share it, I still stumbled a bit over the passage in Proverbs.

I can read a passage and think I get the gist of it, but it is so important to really grasp what Scripture is saying. 

The phrasing of Proverbs 18:21 is a wee bit confusing when I really focus on it and I could gloss over it but that is not being a good student of the Word. 

So here is a picture of my dilemma as I faced in my study time yesterday. 

You see the “it” can be misconstrued so I did some checking in other translations and in commentaries and have landed on this as a more clear picture of what this wisdom means:

Our tongues, the words we speak (including inside our brains, in print and out loud) have great power to bring death

(kill, fatally wound, destroy, smother, assassinate, annihilate)

or life

(nourish, plant, give hope, regenerate, cause to bloom and grow)

and those who love using words often, talking much, sharing much….will be fed by what they talk about, think on, post, share. I would add that our hearers also must partake of the fruit of choices we make with our many words. 

Laura Reimer on Proverbs 18:21 in my own words

So what is someone like me to do? 

Because I have many, many thoughts.

And I doooooooooo love to share them at times.

For those who think I talk and write too much (my family used to pay me in comic books to be quiet for our extended times traveling in the summer)…you have absolutely no earthly idea the large number of thoughts and words I DON’T say. 

I love words. 

I love speaking them, writing them, thinking them, sharing them…and not all of my words are good words of life. 

I love reading other people’s words and I can’t not hear the ones I don’t love. 

They all pile up inside of me and at times they spill out. Words of life and words of death all jumbled together and as I sort through them, I need wisdom and help to know that not all are worthy of keeping nor sharing.

I have been acknowledged as Captain Obvious more times than I care to remember. 

I have had loved ones remind me that they already know all the things I just told them in analysis of a situation. 

I have retold stories a few hundred times just because I like telling them even if I know I am abusing my audience.

I have bitten my tongue til it bled and I have regretted a thousand times over when I didn’t.

So I think today of a simple lie we may have heard or said on the playgrounds of our youth…

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. 

Oh yes they will.

Bones and flesh heal and tend to be forgotten, but hurtful words…lies…negative commentary…unnecessary talking just to be talking….these cut into our own souls and those who are listening to us and souls are very hard to heal. 

I think the best thing to do is to continually take our words and our wounds from other’s words to Jesus. 

I think it is important to confess when we are loving talking more than we are loving being still.

One thing I am trying very hard to develop is a habit of using words of praise as I fall asleep at night and wake in the morning. I find it stills and quiets the running commentary of my own thoughts and thoughts absorbed from others throughout the day.  

As my mind is filled with praise and thanksgiving to God, the fruit of my tongue tends to be life. 

And when old habits arise and that switches back into old ruts, I find I am quicker to recognize the poison, kneel before my King and ask for/receive His forgiveness. 

Amazing Grace….how sweet the sound <3