Words

Words

Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing.

Proverbs 12:18

In his collection of short stories Ragman and Other Cries of Faith, Walter Wangerin provides us with a wonderful lesson about spiders that illustrates an amazing spiritual truth to us and to our children. He explains that sometimes a female spider becomes a widow for a surprising reason: she eats other spiders who come her way! When a would-be husband shows up in her house, her visitor becomes a corpse and her dining room becomes a morgue. This picture of a spider that eats other spiders becomes a sobering image of how destructive evil words can be. Wangerin says, “This world is populated by walking caskets because countless lives have been dissolved and sucked empty by another’s words.”^a

We know that words can kill because most of us have been on both the giving and the receiving end. As a mom I want to be careful how I speak to my own children and what I say about them to others, because words can build my children up or tear them down. In our families it’s one thing to hear a life situation discussed with discernment, but it’s another thing to hear it recounted with criticism. When we judge another, God tells us we’re setting ourselves above him—an arrogant, scary place to be. We want our words to encourage people’s souls, not dissolve them.

Father,

Please forgive us for the times our words have hurt other people. May we not set ourselves above your law by criticizing and judging others. Amen.