Sticks and Stones

James 1:26
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

Yes, yes, we all know the saying..."Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." True? It is all relative. Even though the poison others spew at us does not physically mame us....they do indeed create pain. Worse pain than physical? My opinion...much worse. I will not claim to be a person of marble who never feels physical discomfort, on the contrary, my pain threshold is not nearly as high as many many others I have encountered. Mental pain, however, I consider myself to be at the 'proficient' level when it comes to dealing with this type of abuse. I must ask myself....how much of this form of evil have I caused others to endure? Have I ever intentionally tossed a word or two into the pot for someone else to discover? Regretfully, I must confess that I have. More times than I care to even admit.
Now that I am a Christian, have I changed this quality in myself? Have I allowed God to transform me into His daughter? Do I conform to the world by partaking in this behavior? I'm afraid that at times, I do. This is no longer intentional, mind you, like it was when I was younger...but whether it is intended to cause pain or not, people may still be harmed by poisonous words. It sometimes requires me being on the receiving end of this before I really begin to take great care prior to openning my mouth.

James 3:6
And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.


James 3:8
But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.


Once the poison comes out, it is too late. To attempt to back-track and remove the words is futile. Their hidden (or open) intentions are exposed and the damage is done. We may claim that no malice was intended (whether fact or fiction) but the hard reality is that the pain is real, intentional or not. We may be able to patch the damages for a period of time, however, that's all we can ever really do: PATCH work. The deeper we love the 'poisoner', the deeper the pain we feel.

Being a Christian has assisted me tremendously in overcoming both my role as 'poisoner' and as the lowly 'poisonee'. The latter is much more difficult for me to face, but I continue to allow God's love to fill my soul. The more of God's love I have inside of me, the less space there will be for poison. One day, I pray that I will be SO completely FULL with the love of my Lord that NOTHING else will fit!! With the self esteem that ONLY GOD can create in me, I will not be forced to endure this poison...the poison that hurts MUCH worse than sticks and stones ever could.
ONLY WITH GOD can this be accomplished.
He is my everything.