Words....knuckle cut

Raise your hand if you have ever cut your knuckle on a box grater......or sliced your knuckle on anything else.  The other day I was just changing bed linen.  Apparently, I was very aggressively changing bed linen.  The sheet slipped out of my hand while I was trying to pull on the last corner of the fitted sheet and I banged my hand right into the corner of the nightstand.  You guessed it....right on the knuckle.  It was one of the pains that just made me grab and squeeze my hand until the pain subsided.  I thought I had just banged it,  maybe bruised it.  But, of course, since I hit the corner I actually took a little gash out of my knuckle and was bleeding.  Great.

Here is the thing, this little nick aggravated me all day.....when I washed my hands......when I went to pick up anything...when I pretty much did anything.  After all we bend our fingers a lot, right?  So I was slightly (or very) annoyed by this seemingly small injury.  I was reminded of it constantly through out the day. It just kept coming to mind over and over again.

So I was also harboring a bit of a nick out of my heart too.  Someone had said something.....a criticism, a little dig directed at me.  I couldn't shake it.  It kept circling back through my mind.  It just kept annoying me.  So here I was with my knuckle and my heart both nicked.

I think word injuries are just like knuckle cuts.  Harsh, abrasive, critical words cut the knuckle of our hearts. Why? Because we can't just bandage our emotions and put them away.  We can't just ice them or elevate them until they feel better.  No, we are constantly flexing our emotions, bending in and out of every situation.  So just like our knuckle cuts these word injuries pop back up all day and every day. Even the ones that are seemingly small.

Reminding myself and perhaps you to be careful with words.  They sting, they nick, they are not quick to heal.

If you have injured some one with your words remember

-  admitting you were wrong might be a great antibiotic ointment

- sincerely apologizing might be a good bandage

- thinking before we speak might be a good preventive measure

Here's to remembering our words can be worse than any box grater or nightstand corner.

Oh and by the way, both my knuckle and my heart are all better now.  It was a good lesson for me.....sometimes we take a little shove so we are reminded to not shove others.

Make it a great Monday and Have a great week.

It's our last week for praying our March focus prayer for Right Direction......finish strong!