Sticks and Stones

As kids we often would say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones; but names will never hurt me”.  As we grew older we come to realize that some of the worse “hurts” are from names or what others say about us.  Most “hurts” from sticks and stones heal quickly and are soon forgotten.  The same can not be said about “words” spoken in haste, frustration and/or anger.  Those “hurts” last some times a lifetime.  At Christmas time there will be many celebrations that are diminished because of ill spoken words.  Once words leave our mouth, they can not be retrieved. 

The apostle James spoke of this:

A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything - or destroy it!  A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can't tame a tongue - it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! The Message Bible

If there are celebrations being diminished by words from the past, I would encourage you to not ignore the elephant in the room.  Don’t ignore them.  Don’t try to rationalize the reasons, just forgive each other.  You don’t know how many more “Christmas’s” you have left.  I promise you that you will never regret setting things right.  I have never heard someone say at a funeral or after a loved one”s passing, “I wish I had never forgiven them” or “I wished I had never asked for forgiveness”.  I have heard regret for not setting things right.