I still love you, Julia Sugarbaker.

When I was younger, I very badly wanted to be like Julia Sugarbaker of the TV show Designing Women.  She was stylish and intelligent and articulate and could tell ANYONE off.  What power, I imagined, could come of knowing exactly what smart and witty and righteousness thing to say at the exact right moment, to put someone in their place.  I was in junior high and high school at the time and it's not that I wanted to be mean.  I just didn't want to feel walked-on.  Does that make sense?

I remember casually sharing this desire with a pastor one day who instead encouraged me to embrace a softer tongue and work on tact instead of pride.  Her counsel was one of those turning points in your life that happens almost without you knowing it, and very much changed my perception of communication.  What I began to see was this....words have power enough of their own.  You don't need shoulder pads and glossy lipstick to wield that power.  You need grace.

"Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.  The tongue is also a fire..."  James 3:5-6

James was very clear in his warnings...our words have power, the kind of power that once out of control is like a deadly poison that no man can tame (verse 8).  Just think about the impact of one negative word, how it spreads not only to its target but can change the whole mood of the person who said it in the first place.  

But what if that power was used for good?  What kind of fire might spread if the spark was rooted in goodness and God's glory?  What if we put God's grace first in everything we say?

Forgive me, I belong to a generation of adults that grew up alongside the rise of social media and email.  Not only did we know everything as newly graduated 20-somethings, we now had the means to express all of our well established wisdom!  Facebook, texting, emails, blogs.  We can say whatever we want and you get the privilege of basking in the radiance of our insight and opinion!

But so fixated on the freedom of our expression, we sometimes forget about grace.
Tenderness.
Intelligence.
Tact.

I still talk a lot, sometimes inappropriately when silence would be just fine but I feel like I have to ramble on with a story anyway to fill in a lull in the conversation.  Like the time I told the story of a man with a severe speech impediment at the vet's office.  He was there for his fewwet'sh yeawly check up and vakshinations.  I told this story to a room full of parents waiting on their children to get out of speech class. (I don't even know what happened.  I just started talking and couldn't stop.....)

But by and large I try to remember the weight of my words, the power behind them.  And when I am tempted to use them in a way that might be less than God-honoring, I remember how much further a soft tongue and a little tact can get you.

And don't worry.  I still love you, Julia Sugarbaker.  More than all the shoulder pads in Georgia.

XOXO....Kelly