How do we get out of the messes we create? I mean the really sticky ones, with our family and friends, when we say things, we didn’t mean to say and it creates a chasm so wide, it feels like no one will ever be able to cross it.

I bet you thought I was going to tell you the answer, the only problem is, I don’t know.

If I did, I could fix some of the issues in my own life that I create. The words “I’m sorry” just don’t carry the same weight they used to. People don’t believe in the words as quickly, or perhaps we throw those words around too often and they have lost their meaning.

I have written about how our words can be a weapon, often wounding people in ways we never imagined. There was a saying when I was a kid, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me” and I always thought that was a silly phrase because I will heal much easier from a bruise than I will from angry words. Tossing hateful words around and thinking we can cover them up with “I’m sorry” is unfair to the people we love. It is abuse. It might work if we have made a mistake and slipped, but if it becomes a regular thing, we need to ask ourselves why we have made the people we care most about a punching bag.

Have you created a mess out of your life with your tongue? Are you hurting the people you love by saying careless things? Are you bruising their heart? The bruises and scars of the heart do not heal as easily as outside wounds. Think before you speak.

Think Before You Speak

If I don’t think before I speak

I will wound the heart.

My careless words I spit and throw,

Are aiming just like darts.

 

The bruises that my words cause,

Take so much time to heal.

I must think before I say it,

And know how it will feel.

 

I create more messes,

If I let the arrows fly.

To save the ones I love,

My tongue it has to die.

 

The words that should be spoken

Are words that sooth and mend.

To build a bridge across the chasm,

I must let the madness end.

 

©2023 Marsha L. Brown