Ephesians 4:29

I've been reaching the homestretch of the school semester complete with a full blown flu-like virus. And anyone who knows me also knows that I become miserable when I'm sick, that I think the world is ending and I become consumed in my illness thinking I won't recover and that I just hate being sick. School is overwhelming, too, with finals approaching like the "Jaws" theme, and what am I doing? Watching episodes of The Walking Dead pretending like school doesn't exist.

I'm in my bed, and thought I would go right to sleep (like I should) but I pulled out my quote books on my bedroom desk shelf and started looking through them. I had just been listening to music in E major, and naturally E major makes me cry, so here I am getting emotional reading quotes and listening to more music now like a sappy typical teenage girl. Gosh, females. 

I've been thinking a lot about Ephesians 4:29, which talks so much about not letting our words tear down others, but instead build others up. It's kind of crazy how much damage our mouths and minds can do to a person. I'm just as guilty as the next guy, it's a hard habit to break, but I've just been totally slapped upside the head about it in a different way than I've seen it before. What if what comes out of our mouths isn't just a "habit"? What if it's actually engrained in who we are as a person, part of our identity? That's the scariest part. I came across a quote in my book, "keep company with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best." The honest truth is, I just truly want to be someone who uplifts others, and I want to be around those who uplift me. 

Taming our tongues requires so much work. Just like training our minds to not think certain ways, or train our bodies to eat healthy or train ourselves to exercise or train our hearts to not judge. We can only want what's on the other side badly enough that we'll do whatever it takes to get there. What scares me most is that maybe we're comfortable where we're at, we don't really care to or want to get there. Maybe we're comfortable judging others from the sidelines, thinking negatively of ourselves or others, excessively eating or saying discouraging things that we just stay there. I want to believe that the work we are willing to do is worth it. We just have to be willing to work. 

"There is a God who is ready to move in power if you are ready to move in obedience." -Gary 

Haugen

God! I need grace bigger than my mouth. I need mercy that resounds ten thousand times as loud. I need redemption that rings clearer than my distortion. I need You.