STICKS AND STONES ...........!

At some time in our lives most of us have heard the following saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

What people say about us and to us has the ability to wound us deeply.

Proverbs 12:18  “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing”.

The tongue is a muscle attached to the floor of the mouth. It is one of the strongest muscles in the human body and is also vital for speech.  Without your tongue you would not be able to formulate words.

We need to realise how powerful our tongues are.

With our tongues we can speak blessings or curses into each other’s lives. 

We can encourage people or we can choose to bring them down by our discouraging words.

There is a quote that says “the tongue like a sharp knife….kills without drawing blood” and an old Persian proverb says “whatever is in the heart will come up to the tongue”.

With our tongues we can belittle, embarrass and hurt someone so badly that they actually want to die.

The reverse is also true.  With our tongues we can bring healing and joy into someone’s life. 

There was a little boy with a bad temper.  His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he had to hammer a nail in the back fence.

The first day, the boy drove 37 nails into the fence.  Then it gradually dwindled.

He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive nails into the fence.

Finally, the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all.  He told his father about it, and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.

The days passed, and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.  He said, “You have done well, my son, and I am proud of you.  Now look at the holes in the fence.  It will never be the same.  When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.  You can put a knife in a man and draw it out.  It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.”

We need to choose our words carefully and to remember that once they are spoken they can never be taken back!

Psalm 34:13  “keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies”

Proverbs 21:23 “He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity"

"For life thrives on the unity of truth, grace, mercy and love for one to another.”
DANIEL KYLE (26/09/1961 - 17/11/2013)

(Nail article source, http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=JeffHerring)