Sweet Words

This has been a busy, busy week for me! Which works out perfectly because it is March Madness ——Sweet Husband’s favorite time of the year. We have a wooden heart hanging from our fireplace mantle, I bought years ago, that we bring out every year. It states, “We interrupt this marriage to bring you the basketball season.” It always makes me smile when I see it.

While Sweet Husband has been watching basketball this week I have been:

—approving final artwork for Zechariah Park —The Tale Spinner and, yesterday, was given a tentative release date of the end of April. Yea!! It has been a long hard road, with many delays, to bring this book to print. I am resting in the assurance that God’s timing is perfect and when it is right, the book will be released. I cannot wait to share it with you!

—creating an activity book with word searches, mazes, coloring pages, etc. for each verse used in Zechariah Park -The Tale Spinner. My prayer is these activities will help our kids hide these verses in their heart as Psalm 119:11 tells us.

—finishing up my second Zechariah Park book and getting ready to send it to my editor. We are hoping for a release of #2 before Christmas 2021.

When I write, I tend to add many details and unimportant facts that are unnecessary to tell the story. In fact, many times these extra words bog down the story and make it more difficult to comprehend. As part of my editing process, I go through the story many times and take out the extra and unnecessary details.

As I was doing that this week, I thought a lot about words, which ones are important and which ones can be deleted.

This morning, I woke up, came downstairs, made a steaming mug of coffee and tuned in to see what was happening in our world.

One story, with pictures and video, seemed to be everywhere. The glee with which some people were telling and posting about this event and what happened to the person involved made me sad, for multiple reasons. What I was hearing and seeing was mean and degrading. Even though I agree with this person about nothing and am not particularly fond of him, the cruel manner many people I respect were relaying the event shocked me, even in cruel 2021.

I went back to my focus this week—words. They are powerful!

The Bible has a lot to say about words:

Ephesians 4:29

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Matthew 12:37

For by your words, you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Proverbs 16:24

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

My favorite:

Psalm 19:14

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

As I shared earlier, I tend to add a lot of unnecessary words and details to my writing. That is something I used to do when talking, also. I realized a couple of years ago that I did not need to share so much.

-Were my requests for prayer for others, just sharing gossip?

-Was sharing that juicy piece of news I overheard necessary?

-Did my words hurt the person hearing them?

I began to take inventory of what I was saying and realized that many unnecessary words and details were coming from my mouth, just like they do in my writing. I committed to work on making sure that every word I spoke was pleasing in God’s sight as Psalm 19:14 tells us to do.

It was not easy, but thought I was doing better in honoring God with every word I spoke. Then....

I saw an old friend I had not seen for a while. The conversation drifted to a mutual friend and I shared a piece of “news” I heard that was not flattering and unnecessary to share. The moment those words left my mouth, I knew I should not have said them. They were not pleasing to God, unnecessary and potentially hurtful. Yikes!

For days I kept thinking about that conversation. Why did I say that? It was so easy to slip back into that old pattern. I asked for forgiveness, dusted myself off, got back up and am trying again to edit my own speech before it comes out of my mouth.

I like what Colossians 3:17 says:

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

This morning, I am making a fresh commitment to making sure the words I speak heal and not hurt, build up and not tear down, and are always truthful and necessary.

Proverbs 16:24

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

This old saying sums it up for me:

Keep your word short and sweet because you never know when you will have to eat them.

Here’s to sweet words – may we speak them, may we hear them, and may we honor God with them.