Parenting – Page 3 – Heather C. King

The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
Proverbs 18:21

I was an eyewitness to a murder at Wal-Mart. Not just one. Many. In the baby section. Among the girls’ clothes. Along the aisles of frozen foods. Standing in line. Two of them in the parking lot.

And not just at Wal-Mart. Wherever I went on Friday, I witnessed the battering of husbands to wives, wives to husbands and parents to their children.

It was murder by words.

Sure, I lose it with my kids sometimes. My tongue sharpens when we’re in a hurry and I’ve asked for shoes to be on feet four, now five times, and still my children play with their toys in their socks.

Sometimes I lose it when I can’t find something I need. I fly through the house frantically shuffling papers, opening and shutting doors, shoving things aside and my kids tag behind me wanting to chat.

And then there’s pestering. The guilt-inducing nag, nag, nagging attempts to wear me down. Why haven’t I sewn a rag doll for her yet? It’s been a long time since she asked me. She clearly sees me sitting down (for the first time in 12 hours) and shouldn’t I now be able to whip out just one more project for her, because clearly I am not doing enough?

But at Wal-Mart that day I didn’t see a slightly tired and exasperated mom juggling shopping list, coupons, and three kids who touched everything, talked about everything and argued about everything.

No, it was a mom screaming at her preteen daughter about outfits. It was a father mocking his son in the parking lot, bringing the boy to the point of humiliated tears.

I didn’t see a husband and wife disagreeing about detergent or the dinner menu for the week. It was a wife snidely joking about her husband to a crowd and a husband screaming in anger into a cell phone.

And I was sick over it all. The kind of sick you feel when you witness violence and you just want to intervene and rescue and make the world better.

Jesus came to bring abundant and overwhelming grace through His sacrificial death on the cross. But, He did something else, too. He reset standards. He told people that good isn’t good enough. Do more than avoid adultery, He said, don’t even throw lustful glances at a woman who is not your wife.

Do more than just avoid murder, “I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ (fool) is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell” (Matthew 5:21-22).

He said our tongues are murder weapons.

John echoed this again later, writing: “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him” (1 John 3:15).

Still, we do it. We call each other names. We gossip. We slander. We quibble and argue in a public show of disunity and disrespect. We talk about our husbands behind their backs.

We make jokes that humiliate. Proverbs 26:18-19 says, “Like a maniac shooting
flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says, “I was only joking!”

Isn’t that what people find funny now? We put others down and then say, “Just kidding!” As if that makes it better. As if that erases the damage already done by our words.

Maybe that’s not you. Maybe you don’t do that.

But, do you ever find yourself “sharing opinions” about others, perhaps even about your friends, commenting on their parenting decisions, their career choices, their clothes, their money, their ministry? Do you feel it necessary to share your thoughts about everything? To rise to every occasion with a verbal slap of a sword in a duel of opinions? To criticize and judge and judge and criticize?

James wrote: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires” (James 1:19-20). How often do we skip right over listening and instead jump right to the speaking part?

God held Ezekiel to the highest standard imaginable when it came to his tongue:

“I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to rebuke them, for they are a rebellious people. But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you shall say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says.’ ” (Ezekiel 3:26-27).

God essentially glued Ezekiel’s tongue to the roof of his mouth. The only time Ezekiel could talk was when he was saying what God wanted him to say.

What if that became the standard we used to decide when to talk and when to keep our opinions quietly tucked away in our brains rather than spewing out of our mouths? What if we asked, is this something God Himself wants me to say? Maybe we could give ourselves a little grace and just ask, “Is this something God would approve of me saying?”

Either way, I know I don’t meet that standard 100%. I wonder if any of us do.

My mom had all of us kids memorize Ephesians 4:29 when we were little. We’d bicker or start name-calling and she’d intervene and ask us to quote this verse: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

No unwholesome talk. Nothing hurtful. Nothing weighted down with criticism and oozing with judgment.

Instead, we ask, “Is what I am saying right now helpful? Will it encourage someone else and build them up? Will it be of benefit to anyone listening?”

If not, then they are words best left unsaid. Because words are powerful. They are life and death weaponry in our arsenal. We speak words of hope and people remember them for years, thriving on encouragement and being renewed by praise. We speak words of criticism and people remember them for years, dying a slow death from the poison of language.

How can your words bring life and not death to others today?

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

“Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand”
Isaiah 41:10

My older girls raced outside, tumbling over each other in their speedy way. They jumped onto the swings and pumped their feet to go higher and higher. They chased each other down the slide.

I watched from the kitchen window to make sure they were safe, were playing nicely, were obeying the rules. Every time they travel outside my backdoor, we review. Don’t leave the backyard. Don’t go into the woods. Don’t even go to the side of the house and certainly not the front. Stay where I can see you through the kitchen window. Come when I call. You may say “hi” to our friendly neighbors, but do not enter their yard. At all times, Mom needs to know where you are.

They’ve heard it so many times that I start the sentences and they complete them.

And as they closed the door behind them, I called them back for suntan lotion to protect their fair skin.

I sat down in the quiet to rest and read and then I heard them—two tiny voices screaming, hysterical, shrieking, piercing. Not a hurt cry. A fear cry. More like terrified. I ran, crossing over the gravel driveway without shoes, looking right at the two little girls perched at the top of the slide. I could see them safe in front of me. So, what was wrong?

Expecting a rattlesnake or tarantula, I arrived at the foot of the slide and demanded to know what had happened. Were they hurt? Were they bleeding? What monster had threatened their well-being and brought me out here with my heart in my stomach, knowing they were in grave danger?

It was an ant. A teeny, tiny, almost not visible black ant that had crawled onto their slide.

“It’s a fire ant, I know it,” screamed my oldest girl, face all red and hair wild, tears wetting her cheeks.

I bluster. I don’t really know how to react. It’s not a fire ant. It’s the tiniest of tiny normal black ants that are only really scary at a picnic as they invade your lunch. Even if it were a fire ant, it shouldn’t cause that much fear. So, I calm them. Then I instruct them. I say, “God tells us that He “has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). Then I tell them, “Even if it’s a fire ant, even if it’s a spider, even if it’s a snake, even if it’s a monster, even then you don’t have to be be afraid because God is bigger than all those things.”

This morning, I gave myself the same instruction. I read a devotional from a woman sharing about her childhood horrors from sexual abuse by a neighbor and it struck those familiar chords of fear that paralyze me just as my daughters were frozen in fear at the top of a slide. In the car as we waited for school to start, I talked it over with my precious girl. “If anyone hurts you,” I say, “you can always tell me. It doesn’t matter what they say—if they threaten to kill me or dad or you or your cat. If they say it’s your fault. If they offer you candy. No matter what, you tell me.” And in all the innocence of a child who doesn’t really know about evil, she said, “I don’t think my friends from school would hurt me mom.” Yeah, I know.

This world really is a frightening place to live, though—for all of us certainly, and especially so for moms. All of the evil that exists, the sin-state of this world, the reality that people hurt other people, people harm innocence—it’s enough for me to panic and want to hide away and take my children with me.

And it’s not just the big things that sometimes make me worry, but just the possibilities that exist in the unknown. I registered my oldest girl for public school the other day. In September, she’ll step onto a school bus with a driver I don’t know and other children I’ve never met. I’m afraid. It’s a true confession of what is lurking in my heart right now. I’m afraid she’ll get lost in a school so big (if you knew my daughter, you’d understand this). I’m afraid she’ll miss the bus and be scared herself. I’m afraid mean kids will tease her and hurt her so sensitive heart. I’m afraid of the influences I can’t control. I’m afraid she won’t know how to maneuver the cafeteria system.

It’s true that this world can be a scary place to live at times. It’s true that most of the monsters we battle are far more destructive than a tiny black ant and not so easily overcome. It’s true that bad things happen and people get hurt. But, there’s another truth I cling to in this moment; it’s what coaxes me down from the slide where my fears have pinned me. God tells us, “Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

We don’t travel through this world alone. Even in the darkest places when fears of the unknown transform into the horrors of reality, God is with us. That is why we need not fear. He does not leave our side and in the moments that we collapse with the overwhelming terror of it all, He strengthens us and helps us and lifts us up in His right hand to safety. He commands us to “fear not” and then clasps our hand as we take those first uncertain steps into the shadowy places that we’ve been running from.

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