Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Keep It Shut



“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” – Psalm 19:14

I’ve always known I talked too much. It’s an embarrassing fact. My parents have told me. My sister too. Even my husband, patient as he is (and a very good listener), will occasionally have to stop me and remind me that he too has a time schedule to keep, and that listening to a play-by-play of my day is taking up a bit too much of it.

What I don’t always recognize, though, is that it’s not just the quantity of words that may be the turnoff for people. It’s the quality. Ouch! Yes, it hurts even to say it to myself, but it’s true. I need a filter on my words.

I can be quick to judge people on what comes out of their mouths. I can only take a limited amount of profanity before I’ll walk away or turn off a movie. And when I hear the Lord’s name taken in vain, it may as well be fingernails on a chalkboard. Drives. Me. Crazy!

But what about what I say? What is it that comes out of my mouth that makes people walk away from me?

This past week, I was making the rounds of reading my favorite blogger posts and kept running into an ad for a book written by Christian author and speaker Karen Ehman. It’s called Keep It Shut. I would love to say I’ve read it, especially since she and I are connected via a writers group, but alas, I just discovered it. I wish I had sooner. Subtitled What to say, how to say it, and when to say nothing at all, I clearly need this book! For there’s no one who has a bigger case of Foot-in-Mouth disease than I do.

As I saw this message “Keep It Shut” over and over again, I became more and more convicted about my problem. Earlier in the week, the anniversary of the loss of my father coincided with another event, which led to me revisiting a past hurt. Unable to just casually shake it off, I wrote about my hurt feelings and posted it online. A few of my friends who read it consoled me, and I felt better. Until yesterday. When I saw that I had done the very same thing to someone else, went to apologize to her, and she graciously brushed it away as no big deal. “It happens,” she said. Ugh. Yes, it does. But it took me and my big mouth to make it into a monumental big deal. Online. For everyone to see.

For all I love to talk about grace, the words I had written spoke of a heart sorely lacking in it. 

Self-pity had gotten the best of me, and if that weren’t bad enough, I had to talk about it. Not a pretty sight, in others’ eyes or in the Lord’s. I immediately hid my post from my timeline, but it was like taking an eraser to a manuscript written in pen. The imprint was there, in my mind and in the minds of everyone else who had read it.

Spoken or written, words are something we may try and take back, but the damage has already been done. That is why the Bible is full of cautionary notes about watching what we say, even going so far as to call the tongue “evil.”

“Do you see a man hasty with his words? There is more help for a fool than for him.” – Proverbs 29:20

Yes, there is no doubt, when it comes to what we say sometimes, we are often worse off than fools. Have you ever considered the impact of your careless words? Mine have cost me a lot. Friendships. Relationships. A promotion. Even a job.

Sometimes our faux pas are innocent blunders, rooted in all the right intentions. How many times have I tried to “be there” for someone else, attempting to show empathy by sharing my own story, only to come across as it being all about me? Or I excitedly call to share my happy news about a new job, only to learn – after I get through telling them all about it – that the person on the other end of the phone has just lost theirs.

Oh, to remember that God gave me two ears and one mouth, and to use them in that order!

There’s a reason personal success coach and author Stephen Covey included “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” as one of the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. We need to listen before speaking, so we can gauge the appropriateness of what we want to say.

At other times, however, it’s not my ears that need engaging: it’s my brain. Specifically, the part that says STOP!

If I would engage my brain before opening my mouth or sharing online, I might actually remember to ask these pertinent questions: Is it kind? Is it true? Is it helpful? I’ll add in one other question too: Is it necessary? Keeping that one little question in mind before I open my mouth would save me a whole lot of trouble, online and off! Does everyone really need my opinion? Probably not. And as for fixing sticky situations that perhaps my initial wrong word got me in to begin with, over-explaining and belated apologies have never served me well. Sometimes it’s best to just leave things alone.

Coming from a family of talkers, the idea of not saying anything is a foreign concept, but an important one to learn.

A great piece of advice, one frequently taught to children, is a quote by Charlie Brown from the Peanuts comic strip: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. It was originally meant to dampen that brutal honesty young children have, when they blurt out their opinions without any thought about the feelings of others. You know the scenario. “You look fat in that dress, Mommy!” your child says as you’re walking out the door. As your confidence plummets, you wish she had just said nothing at all.

What if you applied that same Charlie Brown rule to the way you speak to your spouse, your coworkers, or even the cashier at the supermarket? And how about applying it to how to talk to yourself?

Have you ever noticed the pairing of “mouth” and “heart” in the Bible? Psalm 19:14 says “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD…”  Beyond the occasional blunder, our words often reflect the condition of our hearts. That means the only real cure for Foot-in-Mouth disease is a heart transplant. Fortunately for us, that’s the business God’s into, as our Great Physician and Healer.
Tweet: The only real cure for Foot-in-Mouth disease is a heart transplant. http://ctt.ec/mfS34+ @lindawperkins

The only real cure for Foot-in-Mouth disease is a heart transplant


Jesus said all of God’s commandments could be summarized into two: love God and love others. It is in this light that we must examine our words. In loving God, do we complain and whine about our lot in life, or do our words show gratitude and honor to Him? In loving others, do our words criticize and cut down, or are we kind and respectful, waiting to hear what is on their hearts before sharing ours?

It may take time, but I’m ready to shed my Foot-in-Mouth disease. With much prayer and God’s help, perhaps one day my words will come out right. In the meantime, I will remember “When in doubt, keep it shut!”

How do you struggle with your mouth? Gossip, unkind words, boasting or complaining? Ask the Lord to show you where your heart struggle – pride, insecurity, unforgiveness, self-pity or ingratitude – may be showing through. 

Keep It Shut originally appeared on Spring Sight blog, by Linda W. Perkins.  Get even more encouragement by following me on FacebookPinterest, and Twitter.

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Today I am linking up with:

Intentionally Pursuing Intentional Tuesday   
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Holly Barrett

Monday, August 17, 2015

Praise Him for All He Has Done!



“I will tell of the LORD’s unfailing love. I will praise the LORD for all he has done. I will rejoice in his great goodness…” – Isaiah 63:7

The birth of a baby. We celebrate it, showering mother and baby alike with gifts and congratulations. We anticipate. Dream. Prepare. Mother shops for baby clothes and imagines her little princess all dressed up like a little doll … aw, how cute! Father pictures himself playing ball with his son … atta boy! The nursery is painted pink or blue, or perhaps a pale shade of yellow which could go either way. The crib is up to standards. The diapers are ready. Any day now. Tick tock goes the clock.

The day comes. It’s a boy! It’s a girl! Family is there and pictures are shared. It’s a day to remember.

Or is it?

We have a funny way of looking at things sometimes.

When baby is smiling and happy, looking so cute in those brand new outfits, and so peaceful asleep in the crib, we remember…God is good! He has brought us the blessing we so anticipated!

When baby is crying, though, and we’ve had little sleep … when the spit-up misses the cloth and lands on mommy’s church dress instead, and daddy has traded in his evening TV sports shows for bottle feedings and burping … oh my, we are exhausted! Where is God? We don’t care. Just give us a place and some peace, to rest our weary heads! It is in this moment that we remember…

This bundle of “joy” began with a whole lot of pain. And we’re not sure it’s over yet.

That’s right. Pain. It’s the very thing we hate that often signals the beginning of new life.
Tweet: Pain. It’s the very thing we hate that often signals the beginning of new life. http://ctt.ec/0Rfle+Pain. It’s the very thing we hate that often signals the beginning of new life.
In the midst of labor, a woman experiences the worst pain she will probably feel her entire life. Yet, on the other side of it is a love she will never have experienced before. So it is for many other things in life.

Teens struggle in search of their identity, painfully learning lessons the hard way, until they reach a point as young adults where they find purpose for their lives. Addicts have to hit bottom before they are ready to climb out of the pit of despair, into a new life of freedom. Illness may take hold of us with an icy, near-death grip, before we find healing. Grief over the loss of a loved one takes us to new depths of emotional pain until one day, holding the very hand of God, we realize there is still hope … for Jesus has conquered the grave … of seeing our loved one again. And in the meantime, we begin again.

Just as a baby must leave the comfort of his mother’s womb, we must leave the familiarity of the past in order to experience the newness of today. And just like his mother, laboring for the birth of her child, we must hold onto the truth that while the pain may seem to last forever, in the end, it will be worth it.

We may not like it, but pain is often what puts life in perspective. How can we be grateful for a pain-free life if we have never known what it is to feel pain? Be honest. How often, when life is good, have you wondered if it’s as good as it gets? Envy creeps in. Perhaps good isn’t good enough. Until it’s bad. Or we see someone else in a situation worse than ours. It’s then we realize…life really is good, when we look at it through the eyes of gratitude.

A year ago, when I began this blog, I was in grief. I had lost my father and my health. I felt the pain and fought not to wallow in it. Today, I see that pain was the beginning of something beautiful. Not just the opportunity to encourage others, by sharing my journey, but of a transforming attitude adjustment that God needed to work in me. Today, I see it. I lost my father…and grew closer to my mother. I lost my health…but by the grace of God and some great medical support, found it again. And in the midst of it all, I found my faith stronger than ever. Today, I am grateful. For the big things. For the little. And for everything in between.

Through the pain, I learned to trust. God is good. All the time. I will praise the Lord for all He has done!

What do you have to praise God for today? Are you focused on the pain, or the new beginning that God is bringing to your life? If the pain is past, share the gratitude for what you have today…yes, even if life isn’t just perfect. If you are still in pain, hold onto hope. Trust that God will lead you through it. You may not see it now, but what He has planned for you will be worth waiting for.

Praise Him for All He Has Done! originally appeared on Spring Sight blog, by Linda W. Perkins.  Get even more encouragement by following me on FacebookPinterest, and Twitter.

Subscribe to Spring Sight via e-mail
Subscribe to Spring Sight by Email Your privacy is very important. Your email address will not be shared with any 3rd parties. 





Today I am linking up with:

Intentionally Pursuing Intentional Tuesday   
purposefulfaith.com

Holly Barrett