Words

Today's powerful blog is by my friend and fellow writer, Pam Manners.

WORDS

Words -- meant for life.
Creating life.
In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God
And the Word WAS God.

Logos.
In the beginning, God spoke the world
Into being,
Bringing life into
Existence.
Everything began with a word
From the Word.

Words -- meant for:
Communication
Encouragement
Instruction
Inspiration
Wisdom
Healing

Words -- meant to:
Show love
Bring joy
Ease pain
Give hope
Convey beauty

But like everything else
We’ve taken and twisted and turned them into
something else entirely.
Crushing others beneath the weight of our hate-filled words
Burning them with the fire set by our own tongues.

Words -- spoken out into the cosmos
Never to return
Reverberating down towards
Generations to come.

Words -- once released from our lips,
They cannot be retrieved,
Like a kite on a string
Caught up by a powerful wind,
Unable to be reeled back in.

Words -- dripping with hatred’s
Poisonous venom.

Words -- they can be stricken from the record,
But not from a heart, mind and soul.

In real life, once uttered,
There is no Edit button to click on
And change them.

Words -- in real life,
They cannot be rewound
And deleted.

Words -- once made ready, aimed and fired at us
They are:

Forever embroidered onto us
Indelibly ingrained within us
Permanently tattooed upon us

Words -- that hurt and maim
Carelessly thrown our way
Like verbal daggers that wound and scar
Slicing deep into our inmost being.

Words -- that bring about death
Like grenades set to explode,
Thoughtlessly dropped into our laps
By those with no regard for us
Or our emotional well-being.

Words.
In the beginning -- created for life.
Created by God.
For good.
For OUR good.

Words.
Today -- and every day
May you think before you speak.
Choose wisely what you will bring to others with your words:
Joy or sorrow.
Encouragement or despair.
Wisdom or foolishness.
Healing or destruction.
Life or death.

My Own Fault

How often I have lived in the heavy chains of "It's My Own Fault." I felt I had no right to pray because I had chosen to walk my "not God" path and was living with the consequences of my choice (let's call it what it is --my sinful disobedience). The weight is suffocating and filled with despair.

Today I read a beautiful devotional by one of my lifetime favorite authors, Elisabeth Elliot. In her clear and poignant way she wrote about this in a way that needs to be passed along to anyone dealing with self-flogging, festering fault. I pray you will also be blessed with her devotional. May I also recommend reading any of her many books --life changing!

http://www.elisabethelliot.org/devotional.html

Someone who is suffering as a result of his own foolishness or failure may read these words. These griefs are hard indeed to bear, for we feel we might easily have avoided them. We have no one to blame but ourselves, and there isn't much consolation there. Sometimes we imagine that we must bear this kind of trouble alone, but that is a mistake. The Lamb of God, slain for us, has borne all of our griefs and carried all of our sorrows, no matter what their origin. All grief and sorrow is the result of sin somewhere along the line, but Christ received them willingly. It is nothing but pride that keeps me from asking Him to help me to bear the troubles which are my own fault.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, take away mine.
I take Him at His word indeed,
Christ died for sinners--this I read--
And in my heart I find a need
Of Him to be my Savior.
(Dora Greenwell)

Daily devotions courtesy of Devotions.org, a ministry of Back to the Bible.

Blessings,
Linda