Words can start a war and words can bring peace, words can build, words can break, words can hurt, words can heal, words can kill and they can give life. Words can bring understanding as much as they can bring misunderstanding and words can build confidence or break it. With that said, we need to be very cautious of what comes out of our mouths because words have the power to bring feelings and ideas to life and they also have the power to change a life for better or worse.
Words are like seeds – some you’ll scatter them your path and birds will come and eat, some will fall in rocky places with little soil where they germinate quicker but will wither away even quicker because they have no roots. Some of the words you plant will fall into thorny places, these thorns will grow bigger and will suffocate the plant and some will fall on very fertile ground and they will produce beautiful and edible fruits.
Be careful that your words don’t become bird food (gossip), give your words roots so that they may not wither away but stay in a person’s mind and heart forever; do not say things just to manipulate the next person like saying “I love you” to a person just because they are rich. Rather speak your words so that they may be understood, professed, kept in the heart and received well for them to make a positive impact in a person’s life.
A person’s reception of what you say depends holistically on the condition of their heart and mind. If the only thing a person feels for you is hate, everything you say to them will carry negativity. To the one you love, prepare their heart like you prepare the soil for planting – condition their heart to purely receive your profession of love and to take to heart your promises.
As the saying goes, “the proof is in the pudding” – let me turn my attention to how words ruined an 19 year marriage. Marah Louw, a South African actress and songstress was married to a Scottish businessman, Bill Thomson. Marah say that for 16 years of the 19 years their marriage was filled with happiness until her then husband started acting up – he started having issues with her weight, he started calling her “ugly” among many other nasty comments. She says the way things were bad she felt like she was cracking up, that’s when she sought therapy in Cape Town. This is a classic example of body shaming and this shaming is nothing else but verbal – another example of the effects of words.
Marah Louw has recently released her tell all autobiography, where she’s written about her married and many more of her life events – the book is titled It’s Me, Marah.
As Tom Stoppard writes, “Words… They’re innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they’re no good any more…”
Guard your mouth because what you say goes into the universe and can come into existence – will like it, will you not?
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