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“Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Proverbs 12:18 (NIV)

I was trying on a dress I really liked but wasn’t sure of the length, so I had my friend Andrea with me to give me her opinion. The dress was about three inches above my knees and showed too much of my legs, in my opinion. Andrea pointed out to me that my dress was exactly the same length as the one she was wearing and that she thought it looked great on me.

I looked at her dress and did not notice what she was saying, so she asked me, “Don’t you see that my dress is the same length as yours?” There, in that tiny fitting room, it was hard for me to look down at my friend, who stands shorter than me a few inches, to notice the length of her dress.   So, I said to her, “Well, I am not that short and can’t really tell.” She looked at me, shocked that I called her a “shorty,” as I tried, unsuccessfully, to fix my phrase by saying, “oh, wow, that didn’t come out the way I meant for it to! I really meant that I needed to be short and look up…”

Andrea said to me, “Luska, you are making it worse by the minute. I get it, you think I am short.” By then, there was no way on earth that either Andrea or I could keep a straight face or – even worse – stop ourselves from breaking into severe, loud laughter in the fitting room. I then looked at her and said, “If you choose to never go shopping with me ever again, I will completely understand.”

I ended up not buying the dress, but on that afternoon, even though it felt like a joke between good friends, I was reminded that our words, if poorly spoken, can harm someone’s self-esteem and confidence.
 

“Dear Lord, sometimes we don’t realize the depth of what we say, because we don’t take the time to think our words through. Please help us to be wiser with our lips.”

For His Glory

Luska Suzano
TRBC Women’s Life