The last of a three-part series.

How many times have you heard someone say, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it?”
This is true, you have to be careful with your tone or you can wind up sounding sarcastic.

This is my brother, Rich, along with his daughter.  He often gets himself in trouble for the way he says things. He lived with my sister for a short time during his college years. One morning he came downstairs when my sister was having her coffee, wearing a cozy new bathrobe. Rich looks at her and says in a sarcastic tone,  “Nice robe, Pat”.
“What? You don’t like it?”
“What do you mean, I said it was nice.”

One evening, she made a particularly delicious chicken dinner. Rich said to her, “This chicken is really good.”
“Thanks, do you want some more?”
“I didn’t say I liked it THAT much.”

We call these things Richisms.
So now at family gatherings, whenever somebody misinterprets what is said , one of us will simply say, “Nice robe, Pat.” We laugh and everybody gets it.
My brother says he’s often afraid to speak at all for fear he’ll get himself in trouble.

Be careful how you say things!

Sometimes the words that haunt the most are those that are in our own head, the ones we speak to ourselves, the negative thoughts that we take as truth. Often it’s the voices from the past, the things that were said to us even as far back as our childhood. You’re no good, you’ll never amount to anything, you’re not pretty, why try so hard, it doesn’t matter anyway, you can’t do anything right, nobody will ever love you. My suggestion is to print Psalm 139 and keep it handy. Read it every day. Know that God thinks of you all the time and He loves you just as you are. Don’t listen to those voices, listen to what God says in his word. Verses 13-18 say,

“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.”

This is Dad.
My stepfather. He passed away in 2008. He was a handsome man in his younger years, very intelligent and wise, but he suffered from depression. We always knew this but didn’t realize to what extent. He also lacked self-confidence, so over the years he didn’t go out much, except for work.

He was a hoarder. Of everything. He couldn’t throw anything out, so there were boxes upon boxes of useless junk. Any paper that came into the house he kept.

After he died, my brothers and I began the daunting task of sorting through these boxes in a storage unit where they had landed years before. What we found among the papers was terribly disheartening. Dad had written notes to and about himself on any paper he got ahold of. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. All self-deprecating. He believed he was worthless, he believed he was no good, he believed he was ugly and unattractive to the point of repulsion to other people around him. He believed he had nothing to live for, because nothing was ever going to get better.

That was NOT the truth, those were the voices in his head. He listened to them as truth, but they were not.

Most of them had the same sentiment, that he was no good, unattractive and would be alone for the rest of his life. Some indicated a wish to die, since there was nothing left to live for. He was trapped in a life dictated by his negative thoughts. He believed in those thoughts and emotions as if they were the truth. They became magnified as the years went by. Had we known the extent of his deep depression, we would have done our best to get him the help he so desperately needed.

I went through an unrecognized childhood depression and lived functionally depressed for most of my life. I was blessed with an excellent counselor in my forties, who introduced me to cognitive therapy. You see, the words that we tell ourselves can be equally haunting, and sometimes even worse, than the words of others.

She suggested I read a book titled, Feeling Good, by David Burns. It was life-changing. I was able to recognize and change the old patterns and replace negative thoughts with new positive ones. Over time, the depression lifted. It will always be a struggle, but there are tools to combat it.

Are you a negative thinker? Do you put yourself down and constantly berate yourself for your perceived flaws? Don’t let the voices in your head dictate who you are or what kind of future you might have. Don’t let the echoes from the past speak as your truth because it’s not truth, they are a lie.

Just because somebody said it, does not make it true.

Just because you think it, doesn’t make it so.

Let the words that haunt us be the words that God says to us, through his word. He loves us, he gave his son to die for us, he wants us to have a hope and a future. He is there for us always, wherever we are, he is with us.

I’m going to counter the negative voices in my head with positive thoughts and God’s word.
How about you?

This is Sue. She was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met, in the ways that were most important.

Sue was my next-door neighbor. She and her husband Brian were what you’d call “good people”. We’d often talk over the back fence. The last time we spoke, she was 7 ½ months pregnant with her 2nd child. She was ready, she said, it was getting difficult and she was ready now to meet her new baby.

The next day she took a terrible fall down her basement steps, propelling off to the side and landing on her head. She suffered a traumatic brain injury, and sadly was declared brain dead later that day. Her baby was delivered by c-section and laid on her abdomen, with her arms placed around him. Not too long after, the respirator was disconnected.

We were heartbroken. It was all so tragic. But Sue left behind her own legacy. Everyone who knew her felt the same. You see, she never spoke an unkind word about anyone. If somebody else spoke harshly or critically about another person, she would turn it around, giving a reason why they may have behaved that way. Never one to gossip, but one to speak positively. She always, always had a kind, encouraging word.

How do you want to be remembered or perceived? Do you want to be someone people are drawn to because of your encouraging words and positive outlook? Or someone people avoid because of your negativity.

I want to be more like Sue. I think we all need to be more like Sue.

So be kind always, to your family, your neighbor, your coworkers- and yourself. You never know which day may be your last.

May our words that haunt others be those that encourage, build up, give confidence, and make them feel loved and at home in our presence.

~Carolyn

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