Thou Art Wordy

I don’t like being asked what is my favorite thing, from food to film to family member (don’t your kids ask which one you like best?). There are just too many things I like and love, even the odd relatives. But, it would be a cop-out to opt out of this week’s writing assignment--what I am most thankful for--just because I dislike narrowing things down. So, here goes: I am most thankful for...words.

I have loved words since I was a very young child. I wrote poetry and stories. My beloved first-grade teacher once asked me how I managed to create a certain poem. “I dunno,” I replied. “I just thunk it up in my head.” At age 8, I wrote a poem for my uncle in honor of his college graduation. It contained something about a wise owl. The adults were impressed, but no one framed the thing or tucked it into a memory book (do I sound bitter?).

Don’t judge me: I used to enjoy reading the dictionary and fancied becoming an etymologist. Yeah, kind of a geek, but since I enjoyed learning about history, it’s not a far stretch to be curious about the history of words.

We all have a ‘history of words’: words we hear and those we speak; those we read, and those we write; words we text and words we dictate. Maternal comfortings, excited expressions, stern warnings, friendly overtures, caustic playground comments, encouraging observations, bossy dictates, boring lectures, romantic proposals, angry outbursts, emotional speeches, children’s first words, furious arguments, powerful prayers, peaceful exchanges, inspiring sermons, funny commercials, hilarious stories, sad songs, worshipful services, last words.

There is much to be thankful for when it comes to words. I have precious word memories: my dad's greeting, “Hey, good-lookin'!” My husband's words of commitment on our wedding day, and every day since. My son, age 3: “You're the most beautiful mother I've ever had.” My daughter, looking at the changing leaves outside: “Those leaves are very colorly.” And another daughter, barely age 2: “You're so bad and so stupid.” Well, can't win 'em all! 

The Word of God in particular is so precious to me because it is alive, encouraging, instructive and helps me to know God. The Word is good: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).  Words are important to God: “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds” (Deuteronomy 11:18). “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” (Proverbs 16:24).

Of course, not every word we speak is a gracious word: we can use words to hurt, twist truth, dismiss, destroy, abuse, propagandize, criticize, even to kill. That is why the Apostle James addresses misuse of  “the tongue” as a spiritual problem. We sin quite easily with our tongues and need to listen more and talk less. “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry....Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless” (James 1:19, 26).

Keeping a tight rein on my tongue...ouch. Only God can help me with that. But, I am thankful for His Word--the Living Word Jesus Christ--for displaying for all of humanity, including me, that His gracious words can indeed bring healing to our soul and bones. 

Secrets of a Joyful Life

One of the turning points of my life is when I learned to be joyful. Yes, joy is a byproduct of our spiritual life, and the mark of a true follower of Jesus, but we can foster it and we have choices to make. In my Bible reading I realized how many instructions there were about being joyful—it isn’t just automatic for a believer. There are many, many verses about how we are to delight in God, praise Him, thank Him, and rejoice always.

For the Lord takes pleasure in His people…Let the people be joyful…Let them sing aloud on their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth.                            (See Psalm 149:4-6.)

Let my mouth be filled with Your praise all the day.                                                  (See Psalm 7:8.)

Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth! (See Psalm 66:1)

Another revelation to me is that complaining is a sin. I have had to work to break bad habits of complaining and criticizing. In The Scripture commands us (See Phil. 2:14.) to do all things without complaining. Whew! That is a hard one. One day I came across a verse, Numbers 11:20, in which God calls complaining despising the Lord. Yikes!

Have you ever tried to go a day without complaining? Or a week? Try it..it is not so easy! 

I took a 17 hour road trip from Washington to California with four teenagers. We had a contest where I gave a ticket to anyone who complained and whoever had the most tickets lost. It was my idea because I thought the time together would be so much more enjoyable if we were not complaining. Guess who lost? Me! I bought the four of them ice-cream to reward them. We still laugh over that one. Hahaha!

Complaining leads to self-pity. Self-pity is just that—a pit. It is just about opposite of joy. As a young Christian in youth group we were assigned prayer partners for one school year. Mine taught me a valuable lesson—turn each complaint into a prayer. This is what we see David did in the Psalms. “I cried unto the Lord…”  What happens when we turn complaints into prayers is a very interesting thing. We have to wait. Yes, we then wait on God for answers, so we have to trust Him with our lives and all the things we are unhappy with. When He answers, which He is always faithful to do, the result is…JOY!

In the classic book “The Christians Secret of a Happy Life” the author, Hannah Whitall Smith, repeatedly discusses the choice of happiness. She writes, “It is altogether the way we look at things, whether we think they are crosses or not. I am ashamed to think that any Christian should ever put on a long face…”

Our family home schooled for about fifteen years. We have one daughter, who we named Valerie Joy. (Yes, she is a joy in our lives!) When she was 11 years old she started a magazine for girls and called it “Joyful Heart”. She and I worked on this together and gained subscribers and each month mailed out a few hundred copies. It was a lot of fun researching, writing articles, getting articles and interviews from the subscribers, finding clip art to go with the writings, proofreading, and putting it all together. We xeroxed it at the copy shop with a pink paper cover. Those are happy memories of days long ago now. Joyful Heart Magazine was published for three years from 1999 to 2001. In the end we changed to a quarterly because it was so much work. Here’s a photograph of the 24 issues we published.

In every issue of "Joyful Heart" we included Bible verses, quotes from books, and stories from girls about being joyful. To write on joy today brings back memories of those “Joyful Heart” days. One of the quotes I like, that we published in one of the magazines, is from the life story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the author of “The Little House on the Prairie” books. “If we expect to enjoy our life, we will have to learn to be joyful in all of it…the habit of mind…”

I have found the habit of gratitude and giving God thanks and praise leads to joy. Psalm 100:4 says we enter His gates, (His presence) when we have thanksgiving in our hearts.) In the Message Bible this verse says “THANK YOU is the password to His presence.” My very favorite verse in the Bible (it is actually in two places, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament) is about JOY.

“You show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy.”                         (See Psalm 16:11 and Acts 2:28.)