"...And in Her Tongue is the Law of Kindness."

Being raised with the maxim, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" has been very advantageous.  I've repeated it at least a thousand times to my own children.  We have had scores of lessons on speaking kindly.  We've tasted honey to encourage it and we've sipped vinegar to discourage the opposite. 

It was time for yet another lesson!  One would think with all the lessons we've had, I would have no trouble coming up with yet another twist to encourage kind speech.  But, wishing to get to the root of the problem, I began searching to see why unkind speech was such an issue.  I decided to just watch things for a couple of days to analyze what was really going on.  I was more than a little surprised at what I found...



We all KNOW the obvious fact that we need to live our sermons before we preach them.  Believe me, my children were not catching their critical spirit from me...or were they?  In response to a child's remark about cleaning, I found myself pointing out how "Suzy" had roaches because she didn't keep her house clean.  And when someone mentioned "George", I pointed out how critical he was of everyone.  And then there was "Brother Henry" who ALWAYS found something wrong with the church service...

I NEEDED to point these things out so my children would learn from these examples how NOT to act!  In reality, I was training them how to be critical, very, very critical.   Their unkind speech was only a reflection of a critical spirit that I had trained into them by my own example.

So this morning, I gathered my children together and we had a sword drill using the Bible verses on speaking kindly.  Afterwards, I told them my story and asked their forgiveness.  We prayed together and asked God to cleanse us of this critical spirit and help us to have the law of kindness in our tongues.

Being a parent has been one of the most humbling experiences for me.  Nine times out of ten, that sin that shines so brightly in their lives is simply the reflection of a hidden sin in my own heart.