It's Hard to Hear the Voice of God When You Won't Shut Your Mouth

I have made an executive decision about resolution #3. I can not bear the thought of maintaining silent around my children for a whole day for fear that they will feel ignored or neglected. So, I will put this resolution on hold until my children are teenagers, and they are giving me the silent treatment so much that they won’t notice that I am being silent as well. Until then, I am making an amendment to my earlier resolution. When I feel inclined to speak, I will remain silent for 7 seconds before I comment or question. Seven is a very holy number, so my prayer is that God will use that 7 second window to let me know if I what I am about to say is stupid. I have really been working on keeping my mouth shut when I would have otherwise spoken for the past couple of months. Let me just say that it has worked wonders. Unfortunately, I can’t blog about any of the good things that have come from not speaking, because all of my stories involve people that read my blog. It would compromise my relationships with these people to speak of our private conversations and the things I wanted to say, but didn’t. The main point I am trying to make, is that I have always regretted the words I have said more than the words I have not said. As a society, we underestimate the power of the spoken word in both it’s positive and it’s negative aspects. If you say you are sick, well then sick you will be. If you use a name, good or bad, to describe someone, they will surely live up to that word. Thoughts can have power, but the spoken word does have power. Thoughts can be controlled, once words are spoken they cannot be taken back. The gift of speech and the ability to bond, and express ourselves through speech is something special that God has given almost exclusively to women. Men speak too of course, but I think we can all agree that they do not speak as often or as intensely as women do. Women need to be careful with our God given gifts such as speech, and we need to make sure that we use this gift to honor God alone.