“Words are potent weapons for all causes, good or bad”.–Manly Hall
Captain Cavedweller and I are currently innocent bystanders watching two people we care about very much go through something no married couple wants to think about happening.
It is both heart wrenching and devastating for us and I can only imagine how we feel is a only a drop in the bucket of emotions they are carrying.
While Captain Cavedweller lets me cry as many tears as I want on his broad and capable shoulders, I know our friends don’t have that same luxury.
Observing the progression of this painful situation, one thing has been made abundantly clear to me – the power of words.
Of course I knew about the power of words before. Most anyone who can think, reason, and feel does. We’ve all, at some point in our life been lifted up by words or cut to the quick by them. But watching someone use words as a weapon, watching the gashes and wounds those words make, is a horrid and terrible thing. Wounds cut with a deepness only a weapon as potent as words can make will take a long time to heal. They may never completely heal. Word wounds linger in our heads and hearts in places it is hard to reach.
Being someone who loves words, loves combining them in ways that create interest for my readers, this experience has given me a new awareness about my responsibility to use words wisely. Carefully. Thoughtfully. Compassionately.
No matter where you are in your life, think about the words you will use today. Remember they are weapons – for all causes – and each one contains its own element of power.
