Special: (A) Affirmed
Secure Protected Enjoyed Courted Intimate Affirmed Led
Proverbs 18:21a: Death and life are in the power of the tongue.
Proverbs 25:11 A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.
SPEAK Encouraging, affirming WORDS over your family.
The difference between tears or a smile, can be a WORD. The difference between healing and hurt, can be a WORD. The difference between tearing down or building up, can be a WORD.
Our WORDS are powerful.
A: Affirmed
The Key to AFFIRMING your spouse is expressing gratefulness for what he/she does and for the character he/she has. Affirmation can be shown in many ways, but in this installment of the 52-Week Plan we are going to focus on our words – spoken and written.
The Gift Of Our Spouse
Your spouse is God’s special creation loved and known by Him. Your wife/husband is precious to God and His gift to You! How do you handle that gift? Do you treasure the gift as though God Himself placed him/her in your hands with a big bow on top? We should regard our spouse that way, but we don’t always have that affirming attitude, do we?
How differently our relationship with our spouse would look, if we consistently treated him/her as God’s gift. Today we are discovering the kind of impact our WORDS can have. Are your words grateful or grumbling? Do they AFFIRM or tear down?
What about your children? Our WORDS can have a profound impact on them – for good or for ill. As our kids grow what we SAY and how we ACT speak volumes to them. They have negative voices that tell them they are unworthy, they don’t fit in, they are goofy looking, too thin, too heavy, wrong color hair, and the list goes on and on! Let your voice BE LOUDER but may it be a voice that speaks AFFIRMATION into their hearts – words of acceptance, giving encouragement, and speaking life to them.
I heard this story a long time ago but I remember the impact, the visual impression it gave me when I heard it. I still visualize it today and it often serves as a reminder for me. I pray that you also might keep this visual in your head often as you speak WORDS to your spouse and your children.
NAILS IN THE FENCE Author Unknown
There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.”
The words we speak to others, specifically our wives, husbands and children can leave holes or give strength. YOU choose what you leave.
A Time to Reflect:
Would you recall a time when someone’s words spoke encouragement and affirmation to you? Think about that conversation for a few minutes. What was the situation? Who was it that gave you affirmation? Recall the thoughts and the feelings that went on inside of you as this person spoke encouraging words to you. Now, what would have happened if that same situation went another way? How would you have felt if that same person spoke negative words to you, made you feel unimportant ,or maybe there were no words, they ignored you? Feel the difference?
At times someone’s actions may speak affirmation to you with no words at all!
I remember when I was 15. I can’t remember if I crossed the line of faith or was a brand new believer but I was at my pastor’s home. I was sharing with my pastor some tough situations I was having at home and all of a sudden someone bursts in his front door and was yelling, “Pastor, someone just hit your car!” The Pastor looked at him and said, “OK, I will be there in a minute” then turned to me and said, “go on” in a calm voice. I was looking at the man that burst in the door and looking back at the pastor and was saying, “Don’t you want to go? Your car! Someone just hit it!” Pastor said, “That can wait, now finish telling me.”
I have never been so flabbergasted before! The urgency of the man that came in the front door would have made most people fly out the door to look, but not my Pastor. Even now, all these years later I can still feel the feeling that went on in me at that moment. I was shocked at first, but mostly I felt completely validated and affirmed. I mattered. This was not something I was ever used to feeling.
Would you recall a time in your life when someone’s actions tore you down instead of building you up? Actions can hurt just as much as words. Ever get picked on in school? It is a horribly hurtful feeling, isn’t it!?
So you see, friends, your words and your actions can live forever in another’s heart. As you may have experienced from the exercise above, you may easily recall the feelings that went along with a situation whether remembering someone’s words and/or actions. The moment can be felt many years later as if it happened yesterday. Words and actions are powerful.
One last reflection. Consider your spouse; your children. Have you left any holes? Now is as good a time as ever to ask for forgiveness. Remember you choose what you leave, affirmation or holes. What if you ask each of these important people to tell you if you have left holes or spoken words that encourage and affirm? Would you be prepared for the answer they give you and celebrate God’s goodness to allow you to speak words of life and to seek forgiveness from God and your “important person” so the holes can be filled in by the mercy and grace God offers. Maybe all that will be left in their fence is a small dent where the gaping hole used to be. God restores our broken hearts and damaged relationships. If He can resurrect our Savior from the dead, then resurrecting a broken relationship is well within His power.
Do you have the faith and courage to try? I trust you do and you will.