“Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” -Unknown Quoter

We’ve all heard this quote at one point in our lives. Maybe we were being made fun of and someone was trying to encourage us.

But let me get straight to the point. Words hurt.

I am 23 years old and have never broken a bone, but words have been the most painful thing I have ever experienced. It is crazy how much pain words can cause.

When I was 6 years old, I spent a week in the hospital because I had my appendix taken out. I remember my parents rushing me to the emergency room and trying to tell the nurses what was wrong.

I was in so much pain that I could barely walk. The doctors could not “find anything wrong” so they kept me overnight to keep an eye on me. I woke up the next morning screaming because my stomach felt like it was attacking me. I remember my parents standing over me looking helpless. I just laid there crying wondering what was happening.

Finally, a nurse came in and said, “Oh we need to take her back to have an emergency appendectomy. Her appendix has ruptured inside of her.”

My mother almost clobbered the nurse. That was the reason my parents brought me to the hospital in the first place.

Anyways, I spent a week in the ICU after surgery, in pain hooked up to tubes that were hooked up to machines. At the end of the week, I went home with a list of things I had to do to make sure I was recovering correctly. I had to take another week out of school because I still was not completely better.

You’re probably reading that and wondering what does that have to with the blog? Well, I will tell you…

I went through weeks of pain and what seemed to be never-ending agony, but words can do much more damage and still leave us in critical condition.

Words.

Why do words have so much power?

Words are something we never see until we write them down on a piece of paper or type them on a screen.

We give them power.

What if you could see each word you said as it left your mouth?

Would that change the way we say things? The way we talk to people?

Words are so powerful.

How do our words gain so much power?

Our words have so much power because we cannot control our tongues. It’s funny how the smallest part of our body can have the biggest impact on our lives.

 The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

James 3:3-8

In James 3, we can see that our words have power. They have power because our tongues are not tame. We cannot control it on our own.

A forest fire can be started by the smallest spark.

Our words can cause as much damage as a forest fire.

How can we control our words? How can we keep our tongue from causing forest fires?

Fire Safety 101

We have to realize that we can’t control our words on our own.

We also have to realize that we cannot use our words to hurt people.

When people are using their words to hurt us and we start to feel the pain, we have to remember to stand strong.

How do we stand strong??

Remember that you are not alone.

Believe it or not, there is someone who can help you withstand the flames. There is someone who can help us stand strong against the words that try to knock us down.

His name is Jesus.

Remember this guy? I talk about him a lot I know. He gives us the strength to stand up against these words.

Jesus is just like us. He knows us. He knows what we will say even before we say it. This may seem scary because he knows us so well and knows our words the good and the bad. However, this is a good thing because Jesus knows us so well he can help us get through the pain that we endure when we face those hurtful words. Jesus can also give us the words to say when we do not know how to tame our tongue.

Trusting in Jesus is the only way we can stop those forest fires that come from our mouth. Otherwise, we may cause more damage than we wanted.