From the song “Words”, by Hawk Nelson:

They’ve made me feel like a prisoner
They’ve made me feel set free
They’ve made me feel like a criminal
Made me feel like a king
They’ve lifted my heart
To places I’ve never been
And they’ve dragged me down
Back to where I began
Words can build you up
Words can break you down
Start a fire in your heart or
Put it out
Let my words be life
Let my words be truth
I don’t wanna say a word
Unless it points the world back to You

Words can haunt in many ways…

This is  me, the summer after 4th grade, when I was about 10. My cousin and I would each spend two weeks at the other’s house during summer vacation. One day, some neighborhood kids were over playing with us in her back yard. I overheard one of the girls whisper to another, as she looked my way, “Who is that girl over there, what’s her name? She’s really pretty.”

I felt so happy when I heard that. No one had ever said I was pretty before. Later in the day, I asked my cousin who she was, and every time I was there, I looked for her. You see, she made me feel good about myself, so I wanted to be around her.

Words that haunt, in a good way.

Recently, near the end of a difficult work day, the phone rang yet again. It was from the reading room, and I thought, oh great, here we go again, the doctor has a question about something I did.

I answered, the radiologist asked, “Who did the last study?”

“Yes, that was me, what can I do for you?” I was polite, but inside my head I was thinking, here it comes, he’s going to start nitpicking.   Well, he went on to tell me what a good job I did on that case, how clear the images were, and thanked me for making his job easier. That totally made my day and my hard work worth it.

So often we hear criticism, but not encouraging words. I want to strive to encourage people more often. How about you?

 

My senior year of high school was a difficult one. I was a clean-living Christian girl, while many others at school were partying, which meant smoking, drinking and drugs. I was doing none of that, so I wasn’t part of the in crowd. I also suffered from eating disorders and had gained a significant amount of weight the previous summer. I was trying desperately to get a handle on that, but unsuccessfully.

The last two weeks of school were so much better. Everyone was nice to everybody else; the cliques seemed to disappear. I felt comfortable for the first time. Our last day of school was a half day. A group of girls were going out to the local pancake house for lunch, and they invited me to come with them.  At last! Friends to hang out with.

As we looked over the menu, everybody ordered pretty much the same type of thing, so I got my favorite: pancakes with strawberries all over and a big tower of whipped cream.

As I dug my fork into the stack, and lifted it to my mouth, one of the girls said sarcastically, “So, Carolyn, how’s the diet going?”

I was both humiliated and crushed. She purposely mocked and embarrassed me in front of the group. I don’t remember how I responded or anything else about that day, but all these years later I recall those words and the humiliation I felt.

Haunting words.

Remember chanting this as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, it’s like this one:

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Ephesians 4:29 (NIV):
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

I want to make sure I never speak mean words, knowing they can last forever in the heart of those who hear them. How about you?

Stay tuned for the next post, with more ways that words can haunt…

~Carolyn

“Life isn’t easy. Together we can make it better.”