Sometimes, there aren’t words left…
I believe in words
I live on words
I relish language
On nights like tonight, words are left to ruin, and I can’t summon them up.
So I wait, in the silence….
And hope….
And pray….
And tomorrow I’ll begin again.
When words leave, there is trust, and something bigger than me will fill in the gaps, just sayin’…
Words are a powerful thing. With their assistance we brave daunting emotions and weighty issues. We express our inmost thoughts and our deepest fears.
Words can cut through the soul to the inner man bringing both healing and harm. Words can be followed by joy, embraced by laughter or lost in sorrow.
There are words we set to flight that we’d like to grab back quickly like the bug the fly snatches mid-air with his rasping, sticky tongue.
There are words we could repeat infinitely and still never exhaust; the “I love you’s” whispered, yelled, proclaimed, declared and given freely.
In the inexhaustible I find a sweet malady. When I’m struck with more emotion than I could possibly utter. Those 2 a.m., “watching the baby sleep” moments. I’m there grasping internally for a way to describe the sentiment and find myself empty but so incredibly full.
How do we pinpoint love on a page? Many have tried but is such greatness definable?
It’s no wonder the heavens declare the glory of God because we would never be able to scratch the surface of the topic. We are so limited in our vocabulary, with our finite minds and detail-oriented natures. Yet there He stands, incalculable, boundless, limitless, vast and grand. And we should be in awe. We should stumble and wrestle with our verbiage in attempt to bring Him the praise He’s due. We do this not because we know we will succeed, but because what else is there?
We bound through life tossing words around like confetti, littering the landscape in an effort to bring joy, excitement, inspiration and meaning. Let us also fill the air with words of thankfulness and praise like the stars that paint the heavens as each word floats on frequency to the ears of one who hears it all.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1
Words are a powerful thing!
From the outside looking in (or the inside looking out) I find myself wondering why I’m saying what I’m saying.
It’s that crazy moment when the spirit is screaming for me to zip the lip and I’m still going and realizing somewhere in the middle that I already regret what I let slip out.
Ah, unruly tongue, I want to wrangle you. I’d like to wrap my arms around the python and squeeze. Maybe it’s to prove that I have mastery over me. Maybe I’d like to show some fruit instead of being a cursed fig tree. Maybe I just don’t like messing up. Whatever the reason, can I undo what I’ve done? Can I suck the words back into my lungs and pretend it never happened?
“But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison” James 3:8
At the end of the day, there’s grace. I’ll stand up again, awake and ready. I’ll try to tame my mouth but the truth is, I am utterly dependent on the Comforter. Only the Holy Spirit can remind me to wrangle my words and reveal to me the truth about my heart. He is my ever-present help. Through him I can make it through this crazy world with tongue and flesh in check, ready to lay my life down again on the altar of grace.
Then when I’ve messed it all up, he wraps me up in his love, showers me with mercy and covers me with peace. I can’t help but fall more in love with him daily. So I’ll press on today with this my goal, “O Lord, open my lips,And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.” Psalm 51:15. Maybe today I’ll learn to bite my tongue a little harder before it bites me.
INSPIRED BY THE COMFORTER 