words, Words, WORDS!

The power of a word is a subject that I am most passionate about. Words can lift a person's spirits when they are feeling low. Words can let someone know how much you care about them and love them. Words can bring healing to someone's soul. Words can be artistic and poetic. Our words give us the opportunity to express our hearts out loud. Did you know that speaking a kind word to someone in desperate need of some encouragement could be life-changing and life-giving? Did you also know that words have the opposite effect on people? Words can crush someone's spirit. Words can make a person feel like they are nothing or like they have no self-worth. Words can hurt someone so bad that they actually feel physical pain from those words being spoken over them. Lying and hurtful words can usher in things like low-self esteem and insecurity, self-loathing, bitterness and pain. One of Satan's biggest tools he likes to use are people's words. He loves to twist things and make people believe things about themselves that are lies. If a person hears a negative word (lie) spoken over them too many times throughout their life, eventually they are likely to start believing that lie. This hurts my heart so badly! I wonder about the girl who starves herself or purges because she feels as though she needs to look a certain way for someone to love her...I wonder what lie she believed that caused her to think that her value was in her outer appearance. I wonder about the young man who believes that he is a loser and won't ever amount to anything in life, so he might as well just quit school now and forget about his dreams....I wonder who first uttered the word "loser" to him. I wonder about the young girl who gives herself to boys over and over because she feels this is how to receive love and attention.....I wonder what lie she believed that made sex and attention from boys the definition of love. I think about each of these people and I wonder who it was that first spoke a word over them while they were still children. Was it their mom or dad, or a grandparent? Maybe it could've been a teacher, or a brother or sister. Perhaps a bully at school, or even a "friend". Whoever it was, Satan took that word as a seed and planted it into that child's head and then each time that same word came up, he watered it, and it took root and grew, until finally it was deep rooted and that child had grown into an adult who believed a lie that someone had spoken over them at an early age. They not only believed it, but they were walking out that lie in their life.
The good news is that we have the choice to speak words of life over people. Words that lift a person up, not words that bring them down. Have you ever been around a person that had the gift of encouragement? Every time you are around them, they say something nice, and encouraging, calling out the best in you? I don't know about you, but I LOVE being around encouragers. My youngest daughter was born with the gift of encouragement. In fact, one day my oldest daughter, Alyssa told me, "mom, when we grow up, I am going to be a singer and Aubrey is going to be an encourager." So precious that even my five-year-old could see that in my 2-year-old...AND she was calling it out in her! Oh yes, there is never a day that goes by that Aubrey doesn't make me feel as though I am the best thing since sliced bread and the most beautiful momma on the planet! Some people are born with that gift, and it just comes naturally. Others of us have to be a little more purposeful. So the next time you get upset at your kiddos or your spouse, and you feel like calling them a "spoiled brat" or a "trouble maker" or a "lazy bum" please think twice. Think about what seed could be growing there, or what is already there and you could be watering. And I want to encourage you to speak words of life to people around you. Be a blessing to them. Bless them with words of life!

Proverbs 18:21 (The Message)
"Words kill, words give life;
they're either poison or fruit—you choose."