Lord, enable my child to always speak words of hope, health, encouragement, and life and to resolve that his/her mouth will not sin. (Power of a Praying Parent, Stormie Omartian)
With the start of the school year, I'm excited and expectant! The boys are growing and developing well. Our oldest son is looking to take on leadership roles and participating in ministry. The younger has embraced school (even though he has a new teacher) and has been doing his work in class. As promising as the first few days have been; my eagle eyes have already spotted the ugliness of bullying. A little boy at our oldest son's school has a speech impediment and I observed a couple of kids teasing him. Ironically the little boy who was being teased is named Isaiah (the same as my son). I didn't take it too well and scolded "Mr. Mischief" for calling Isaiah 'stupid' because of his stuttering and facial tics. It wasn't too longer after the scolding that I heard the word again and even though I reminded my little friend that the 's' word was not nice; I couldn't help but think about why/how it flowed from his mouth...maybe because he had heard it often?!?
The Message version of Proverbs 12:18 says, "Rash language cuts and maims, but there is healing in the words of the wise." As small as it is; the tongue can cause a whole lot of hurt. At the same time; the tongue can bring healing, if used in conjunction with a pure heart.
Lord, we pray that our language doesn't maim anyone! Let us not use our tongues like Ginsu knives cutting and slicing people with our words. Help us and our children to speak words of hope, health, encouragement and life. When/if we encounter someone using language to assassinate another; give us wisdom and courage to confront in love and beseech that person not to sin. There's enough hurt and dis-ease caused by words...we will use our words to restore and heal. You are Jehovah Rapha and we call it done. In Jesus name, Amen!
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