Power of words

Do remember the first day of school?

You know, a little after you learned your teachers’ name

And the name of the kid who would become your temporary best friend

Do you remember what you learned?

The very first thing we learned in school was the Alphabet

123s and a whole lot of ABCS

I can’t help but wonder why was that the first thing we learned?

The alphabet, the key to the very English language itself

A B C D E F G

After the alphabet comes English

We learn the way to write in print and in cursive

To express our names with dots or hearts on our I’s

And then literature

The way a heart can become a main character in a story of despair

The way a gun can become the weapon of mass destruction to the mind

H I J K L M

Words

The power of words

Has the capability to capture us in stillness

Bring us to our knees

Cause our entire being to shake

And tears to fall from our very eyes

Words can hurt

They can cut deeper than the very skin itself

Chiseling away at bone structures and virtues

Causing lives to bleed

Words can be poison damaging and corrupting the most sensitive parts of a human being

Their hearts

Their minds

Even their lives

N O P Q R S

So why is it we abuse this gift of words

This power that every individual possess

A power so strong that even the mumble of them can be the rope around a teenager’s neck

A power so strong that a whisper can calm a raging storm

Or it can spread like wildfire and be the reason that a young girl looks in the mirror and the only thing that stares back is worthlessness

It can be the song to a restless child calming them to a peaceful abyss of dreams

Our words can be our own worst enemies

Along with our minds deception of our hearts

We feed ourselves lies

That there is no purpose for this life

That there is not a God whose very breath created our being

Or that someone else’s life is not worth experiencing

T U V W

Words can be an escape

Leaving this world of murder and rape

Entering a place where words aren’t used and abused

But guarded like treasures that our mouths are endowed with

And when we say I love you we mean it as if the very words were heaven-sent

All of our lives we are surrounded by words

The first ones we speak

The first ones spoken to us

Words to stand by

Words to live by

Hebrews 4:12-13 says, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

X Y

Proverbs 12:18 says, “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

So let us all take role of the wise

Let our mouths spew words of wisdom

And healing

Not of ignorance and impairment

Instead may we speak prayers of psalms

Asking father, “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!”

And Z