31 Ways to Live in Peace, Day 7

Guard Your Conversations


What's the happiest thing anyone ever told you? How about the most devastating? It's amazing the power that words have, what they can do. Words can evoke emotion on a grand scale, whether spoken, written, sung, or typed. Words can encourage and build up, yet crush and destroy. 


We remember encouraging words and we remember hurtful words.  Words are so powerful, in one moment you can tear someone down, devastating them and damaging a relationship that may have taken years to build.  


On the flip side, words can be encouraging and life-changing.  I am reminded of a story told by an amazing photographer, who I greatly admire.  His course was set to be earning minimum wage, living paycheck to paycheck in a small, depressed, abandoned manufacturing town ( he describes it as being able to support seven bars but not one grocery store) for the rest of his days.  There was a new youth pastor at his church he barely knew who took him out to lunch one day and told him that there was a life outside of that small town and that he could do more, be more.  That one conversation literally changed the entire course of his life.


Life changing words. 



Have you ever kicked yourself for losing control and saying something you know you shouldn't have?  Or for purposely hurting someone with your words?


I've done that, do that...way too often.  And it definitely rocks my peace.  Even if it doesn't cause direct conflict with the person, I still spend time going over and over it in my head, wishing I could take it back, wondering why I never learn.


Our lives will be much more peaceful if we can get some control over that flapping thing in our mouths.  Encourage one another and build each other up...I've said it to my girls hundreds of times.


(sorry about the funky formatting...not sure what caused it or how to fix it!)