If you can't say something nice...

Thumper from the Walt Disney movie "Bambi"
Speaking words of wisdom...

Ephesians 4:29  says "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers."

In  Florence Littauer's book Silver Boxes... she shares this scripture and then explains that "to minister" means to serve and give to others...and "grace is a gift we don't necessarily deserve."

During a family devotion with my children I used her book to demonstrate that our words are gifts of grace that we give to each other.  We talked about edifying and it's meaning of building up. "Do our words encourage and build up or do they destroy and tear down? "  In the book Silver Boxes, Florence Littauer writes that  "We should think of each word as a block, and should keep adding good words to each other's pile of blocks... we shouldn't go around and knock other people's blocks down!"

Since the devotion I will often hear one of my children asking the other one "was that edifying?" They got the message. :)

This week I have been thinking about the words we say to others... and it made me remember the famous line in the Walt Disney movie Bambi.  When Thumper states "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all..."  Such wisdom from a rabbit. :) and such a simple message....but not always easy to do.

Today I was thinking about my own words...the reason for this post. Asking myself the question "was that edifying?" I thought about my words and wondered if the people who were receiving them would describe them as gifts of grace.  I thought about my children and husband and wondered if I had been adding to their pile of blocks or knocking them down. My conclusion was... I need to do better and I can do better.

I want my words to minister grace to the hearer....I want them to be gifts of encouragement and gifts of grace... even if the recipient does not necessarily deserve it...

after all, that is what a gift of grace is.