The Power of Spoken Words

I remember in my childhood days that children were encouraged to brush off harsh words spoken about them by others. We were taught the little childhood slogan: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” However in modern times those who work in psychology discover that myriads of people are the walking wounded who have been deeply wounded by hurtful or destructive words spoken to or about them. The people whose word’s hurt them the deepest are often the people who claim to love them.

I recently read that “Words are just words. They mean nothing unless you allow them to.” This sounds like sound advice, if one is being beat up emotionally by people who are continually berating him or her. To some degree, we do have some control over how much we let the words of others affect us. The question is, to what degree can we prevent words from hurting us, and at what cost?

In a sense the words of others cannot hurt us unless we allow them to hurt us, right? Perhaps. Yet one’s ability to not internalize hurtful words depends upon one’s maturity, one’s strength of self-concept, one’s ability to forgive others, and how resilient and/or resistant one’s sensitivities are to demeaning attacks.

Even the strongest person can often be caused to break under a constant bombardment of harsh words spoken with the intent to wound that person in the depths of his or her being. Some people respond to harsh words by becoming calloused and insensitive to others, which becomes a defense mechanism to try to prevent them from ever being hurt again. Other people who have been wounded by words become bitter and harsh towards others, driving others away by being unpleasant, and being unwilling to open themselves up again in relationships, lest they be vulnerable to be hurt again.

Political pundits put out a daily barrage of hurtful accusations against their opponents, until the public hears something so often that they begin to believe that frequent message, rather than believing the concrete character or performance of the one being attacked. Similarly children, who are told often enough that they will never amount to anything, begin to believe those words and allow those messages to shape their self-identity and destiny. Words do hurt, and they do cause destruction. Words do have power.

Of course, the Bible expressed this truth centuries ago. Words can pierce and wound like a sword being thrust into a person, or they can be used to heal and strengthen a person. Listen to the words of Proverbs 12:18 (NAS):

“There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

When we have been wounded by words we often need to experience healing through continually hearing kind and encouraging words spoken about us by a wise and trusted person. The words that decimated our self-image or self-worth need to be countermanded by words that speak of our worth and value to God. We need healing words to counter the hurtful words; we need words of blessing to counter the words of cursing; we need the truth of the Creator to counter the lies of the destroyer; we need wise words to cancel out the foolish words that have been drilled into us.

Unfortunately all of us at some time or other have been a dispenser of sword-like stabbing words, words meant to pierce and hurt another person. But I wonder how many of us have consciously chosen to be healers of the wounded and to use wise words to bring healing to others? You have control over the power of your words. You can use your words to encourage a person to be more than they dream possible, or you can use words to discourage them so they never try to do anything. With your words you can knock the wind out of a person, or you can breath fresh air into them.

Anyone can hurt another person with their words, but it takes a wise and mature people to be able to heal others with their words. Why not make a difference in your children, in your mate, in your family, in your school, in your church, in your neighborhood, and in your community, by purposely speaking words that will bring encouragement and healing to others? Let’s work on developing a personal mindset of using our words to speak life into people, instead of using our words to take the life out of them.