{From I Corinthians 1}
“If I speak…and do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or clanging cymbal”
To speak without love is like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
Harsh. Off-putting.
With a gong, the initial sound is so harsh that the beauty of the echo or the sound of it fading away is hard to focus on. I think it is the same with our words. If they are not wrapped in love, the sound of them are harsh and hard to hear, useless and pointless.
Even if they are words of truth, people will not be able to hear the beauty of the ‘echo’ because they have been so jarred by the initial tone.
So…
My words must be in love to be heard.
My words without love are jarring, disconcerting, irritating, unheard.
I want those around me to associate my words with truth, beauty, love and gentleness.
I DON’T WANT TO BE A GONG!
I want to speak truth in love, gently.
This morning my words were a clanging cymbal, in the car of all places. My poor girls, stuck in a car with their mommy clangin’! Hitting my gong over–of all things–missing mittens.
Ok, moms, I know you are with me. Is there anything more maddening than missing mittens??
The pocket method has been working well for us, until lately. It seems to work when we have consistent freezing weather, because we use them all the time, but the minute it is a bit less freezing, all of the sudden our mittens disappear! We even have a very accessible mitten drawer this year, that contained (notice past tense), extra pairs of gloves and mittens. Now it is a drawer of single mittens with missing matches. How does that happen?
After dropping my mitten-less girls off at school, I came home and found my youngest girls mittens in her coat pockets, right where they should be; she just chose to wear a different coat. (hanging head) I will sit them down today after school, share this verse with them, admit I gonged, and ask for forgiveness. Then we will discuss how to be more responsible with our mittens. This time they may hear me, since I won’t be using these:
Then I’m going to search amazon for a mini version of the top picture. Wouldn’t that be a great visual reminder of how irritating loveless words are? Maybe I could even go beat on it to interrupt the trio of loveless sister words that happen from time to time around here…:)
