Words That Hurt, Words That Heal: Speaking the Truth in Love

By Carole Mayhall

The Bible tells us that our mouths are to be fountains of life, but our day-to-day interactions prove otherwise. So how do we address our hearts as well as our words? This book explores the impact our words can have and helps us develop a filter to hold back things we shouldn’t say.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
• Release date: Feb 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781615219728

Book preview

Preface

WARNING! DO NOT READ THIS BOOK — unless, of course, you want God to teach you, as He is teaching me, some vital issues about our speech. That is what this book is all about. I trust it will be a straightforward handling of a devious matter — our tongue. James tells us that the tongue is like the bit in a horse’s mouth; if we control the bit, we control the horse (see James 3:3).

The tongue is the biggest, littlest bit we possess. And God has a great deal to say about this member — both positive and negative.

May God’s Spirit convict you and me as we look into what to say, how to say it, when to speak and when not to speak — issues that are especially hard for women. May we bring our tongues to the place where they glorify God.

Introduction

Commitment Comes First

Six hundred women swarmed into the hive-shaped banquet hall and fluttered to rest. The buzzing became a low hum and finally stilled as we waited for the evening session of the conference to begin.

Dennis was an eloquent speaker, and he challenged us with story after story of taking the Bible to East Asia. His climaxing illustration left me shaken.

On a recent visit to an Asian church, he sat next to a small woman whose hands were so crippled she could not hold the hymnbook. Following the service, he turned to her and asked, Do you have a Bible?

No, she said softly.

Would you like to have one? he queried.

Oh, yes! Her face brightened.

If you will come back to my hotel, I will give you one, offered Dennis.

As they walked back to his hotel, Dennis asked the diminutive woman about her hands. She told him the following story.

"When the soldiers were searching for all Bibles, hymnbooks, and religious material, they came to my door. I had hidden my Bible under the cold ashes of my stove, but they knew all the places to look. As they were taking my Bible from my house, I grabbed it and said, ‘Oh, please don’t take my Bible. It’s all that I have to tell me about my Jesus.’

"The men said, ‘It’s nothing but a book of fables. Give it to us, old woman.’

But again I cried, ‘Oh, please don’t take it. It’s all that I have that tells me about my Jesus.’

The woman said they took her outside, stripped her, and put her up on a platform to shame her before the crowds. For four hours she sat with the Bible clutched to her naked breast, head down as the crowds mocked and spit on her. They thought she was ashamed, but she was praying.

She continued, After four hours they again tried to take my Bible, but I clung to it and said, ‘Please don’t take it. It’s all that I have that tells me about my Jesus.’

Angrily they spread her out in the dirt with hands clasped and arms stretched over her head and beat her hands with a hammer until they were nothing but pulp. To this day she cannot even feed herself.

As I listened to this story, I was deeply touched. Dennis was totally committed to taking the Word of God to dangerous places. The woman was totally committed to Christ and to His Word.

The speaker the next morning was a sweet-faced woman from JAARS (Jungle Aviation and Radio Service), a branch of Wycliffe Bible Translators. Beverly told of being a homemaker in Kansas when, one evening, a call for dedication was given at their church missions conference. She and her husband, their three small children between them, walked down the aisle and said to the Lord, Anywhere, anytime, and anything, Lord.

Two years later, Beverly walked into a tarpaper shack that was to be her home in Papua New Guinea. It had a two-foot separation between the walls and roof, allowing anything to come and go. She looked around and whispered, I didn’t mean this, Lord.

She cried for two weeks, and when her husband asked if she wanted to go home, she said yes. But the Lord gently loved her until she could say again, Anywhere, anytime, anything, Lord. She and her husband were privileged to see many come out of the darkness into God’s light.

Seven years later, Beverly waved goodbye to her only son returning to college in the United States. In her heart she cried, I didn’t mean this, Lord. But again, after a struggle, she trusted God to care for her son while he was half a world away.

Two years later her family was reunited when they were transferred to North Carolina where her husband was to train other aircraft mechanics at the JAARS base. Her son planned to become a pilot for the jungle aviation program.

One night Bev answered the insistent ringing of the telephone. A doctor from a local hospital urged, Come quickly. There’s been an auto accident. Bev and her husband rushed to the hospital. The doctor met them, and with voice breaking he said, Your son’s girlfriend is in x-ray right now — we think she is going to make it. But … I’m sorry to tell you that your son did not.

Into Bev’s mind flashed the image of a young couple, their three small children between them, walking down the aisle of a church and saying, Anywhere, anytime, anything, Lord. And the enemy of her soul taunted, See! See what God does when you give everything to Him? Her heart cried in agony, Oh, I didn’t mean this, Lord.

Then quietly to her heart the Lord said, Beverly, I gave My only Son for you. Are you willing to let yours go to be with Me? And she was able to respond, Anywhere, anytime, anything, Lord.

Beverly’s face was illuminated from within as she told her story and then sang a beautiful song of praise to God.

I slipped away from the crowd and went back to my room. There I wept and cried out to God. I was weeping for the little woman with crippled hands. I was weeping for Beverly’s loss. But I was also weeping for myself. You see, I was to be the next speaker.

I prayed, Lord, what in the world am I doing here? Dennis and Bev and the little woman are extraordinary people and have had extraordinary experiences. They are totally committed to You, and their faces and lives reflect that. But then there’s me! I’ve never lived in a tarpaper shack. I’ve never taught people in foreign countries. I’ve never been beaten because of my love for Your Word. Lord, I’m supposed to speak after them? I don’t deserve to sit on the same platform. I am so … so ordinary.

The Lord spoke firmly to my heart. He said, That’s true. You are.

In an instant, I knew what He was saying. Yes, I am ordinary. But we ordinary people have an extraordinary call to an extraordinary God who calls each of us to total commitment. He has called me to respond, Anywhere, anytime, anything. And whether I live in a tarpaper shack in a jungle or in a home in Colorado, whether I minister to strangers or my neighbors, whether I suffer physically or am spared, pain matters not. It is my heart commitment that is imperative, my willingness to be totally His — anywhere, anytime, and in anything.

Many Christ-ones merely want involvement — and a small piece of it at that — in Christianity. God wants total commitment. He wants us to be wholehearted. Sold out. Willing to pay the price of being disciples.

The purpose of our lives is to know God. At the end of his life, the apostle Paul still desired this at an ever deeper level:

[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him — that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted