I like to think I am a kind person. A person who uplifts and encourages, or who always says the right thing in a situation. But the truth is that lately I have been finding myself saying things that admittedly are on my mind, but that also aren’t the most gentle things that I could say. I feel like my words can often hurt or offend the people that I love and care about.

Often we think of them as “just words”. We convince ourselves that “they didn’t mean it” or “oh, it doesn’t mean anything”. But each word that we use DOES have meaning.

When I think about myself, the words that people say to me stick with me. I remember compliments or criticisms that people have given me with great clarity. Words of affirmation or criticism are what could make or break me. The scariest part of it all is that usually what sticks with me are the criticisms people give me. I could hear 99 positive things and 1 negative thing… and that one negative thing is what I listen to, hear, and let digest. I ponder on it. I turn the situation over and over in my head, trying to figure out what I could have done or said differently to change that person’s mind.

I think that this is true of many things in our lives. We spend a lot of time focusing on the bad things. We focus on the negative things that happen instead of the good that is coming out of certain situations or our everyday lives. It’s a nasty way that the Devil tells us that we are not able to be loved or to be redeemed from it. We draw deeper and deeper into negative thinking and fall closer away from Truth.

I believe that words have power. I believe that what we say can make something true. Please do not misunderstand me – I am not saying that if someone said that the sky was hot pink enough times and believed it enough that it would happen, or that someone could make God disappear by saying over and over again that He didn’t exist. I most certainly do not believe that. What I am saying is that if you tell someone enough that they are ugly, or stupid, or a failure… that they will start to believe that are nothing more than those things and that they can become nothing more than an ugly, stupid, failure.

One example I think about a lot is all of the complaining people do about millennials and how entitled we are and how disconnected, and lazy we are. First of all those of you who are complaining – have created these monsters… we had to be raised by someone. But secondly, if you keep telling us that this is who we are – then we start believing it – and then we become exactly what you have said. Clearly we have! It’s happening right now.

Why not use the words we say to one another to uplift and encourage. To help others to grow, instead of brining them down. I think that constructive criticism is important. But this also should come from a place of love and desire to see someone mature, and grow deeper in love and relationship with our Maker.

Ultimately, what people need to know is that they are loved and redeemed by the One whose opinion of us is the only one that matters. God chooses to use us to show others what a relationship with Him looks like. What that love causes you to do when it fills your heart… to pour it out to others through your life, your actions, and most importantly your words.

²⁹ Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.

³⁰ And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own,^[e] guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.

³¹ Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.³² Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. — Ephesians 4:29-32