The other day, I was talking to a friend.  It was kind of a serious talk.  I was trying to resolve some stuff that had come up in our friendship.  There was a lot of assuming without much communication at all, which led to some tension that I had finally decided needed to be taken care of, and was finally brave enough to do so.  We were talking, and it was going absolutely nowhere . . . until I said something — something that I didn’t intend to say, and I didn’t even mean it.  Things blew up at that point.  I’ve been working and praying all week for it to be resolved with no knowledge as to when we’ll be reconciled.

The worst thing about the whole situation is that I had been praying so hard for this person that they could seriously experience the love of Christ, and that a real and authentic relationship with the Holy Spirit could be a part of this person’s life.  And, with one simple slip of an unthought-out sentence . . . I feel like it’s all gone.  It’s going to take a lot of work to get this friendship back, if my friend is even open to it.

I’m reminded of so many places in the New Testament that we are warned about our words.  James talks about the tongue being like a wildfire; like a rudder of a ship—a small part of a huge ship, but controls the direction of it.  Relationships are made and broken by communicating and talking. Not only that, in everything we do, we represent God . . . in every action, in every thought, and even in every word; those spoken in secret and those shouted from the roof tops.

And, the thing about words — they’re not as easy to recall like some lead-painted toy on the market.  You can’t put out signs, everyone mails them in, and you get your money back.  Words linger for much longer than you want them to, especially the hurtful ones that you speak. There’s no turning back once something has been said.  You can apologize, you can correct yourself . . . but sometimes you’re not offered the chance . . . and what you said is now truth in that other person’s life.