“You are so stupid! How can you be as old as you are and not know how to do simple things? I feel sorry for whoever marries you and has to live with you.”
Although it’s been 30 years since Sandy heard these words, she has never forgotten them. God kept her from becoming angry and bitter but, unfortunately, she allowed her mother’s view of her to keep her from living. She has spent her life afraid to try new things, and she is convinced that no one could love her because, after all, if her mother didn’t, why would anyone else?
Proverbs 18:21 tells us that “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” and yet many parents speak death over their children. Spouses often beat each other down instead of building each other up. Brothers and Sisters, this should not be.
As Christians, we are called to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2). If you need to correct someone, it should be done in love and humility, not in arrogant belittling. The adage “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is a lie. Words hurt a lot longer than sticks and stones often do.
If you have recently said things to hurt someone, please go back to that person and share something positive that you have observed about him or her. If you have been hurt, ask God to help you see things the way He sees them. Then pray for the person who hurt you, refusing to let a “root of bitterness spring up and defile many” (Hebrews 12:15).
We need to value those that God puts in our lives. Commit today to speak life wherever you go. I expect that you will begin to see more positive attitudes in those around you as well.
Your article is good.
We need to speak life.
Though when abuse is spoken about it usually puts the emphasis on a woman or child presenting the man as the abuser.
It may be so in the cases physical abuse.
But in the case of verbal abuse a man is abused more than the other parties.
King Solomon in Proverbs three time made a point about the brawling or contentious woman.
Proverbs 21:9
It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.
Proverbs 25:24
It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house.
Proverbs 27:15
A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.
Evidently King Solomon and his many wives, he had some that were abusers.
You seldom hear these scriptures taught on in the cases of abuse.
Just food for thought.