Pray Before Speaking

Big Mouth. Laser Lips.  Chatty Cathy.  All names I've been referenced by.

One day after leaving a friends birthday party I came home to tell my Mom that I wished God would make me talk less.  She then looked at me and asked "What happened"?  Not why. But what happened.  She knew immediately something had triggered that.  So I told her that some kids at the party had called me laser lips.  She then told me NEVER ask God to remove an attribute from  you.  That if God wanted me to talk less he would have given me that personality.  She then told me to think of all of the people that would LOVE to be able to say just ONE word.   She also told me that often there are people that want to speak up but fear prevents them from doing so.  She then said, but baby don't argue a sign board "Pray before speaking".  This made no sense at 8 years old.

Usually, as anger sometimes enters my mind I think about those words "Pray before speaking".  I've come to realize that in anger we say a lot of things that needn't be said.  And often times we don't even mean the words. . . we only mean the pain.  Well, let me speak for myself.  I often don't mean the words, I mean the pain that comes with the words.  In fact, I sometimes mean to insult people.  I sometimes MEAN to get folk perturbed.  However, with each day I'm learning to "Pray before speaking".  It is one of my most difficult tasks some days.  It's not that I have this twisted sense of pleasure from hurting people. It's that I hide behind a mask of "you can't hurt my feelings".  So my "armor" becomes a sharp edged tongue.  I know that words cut deeper than a knife.  So when you hurt me I start throwing words at you like I'm on a battle field fighting for my life.

The last few weeks have been challenging (today especially).  I really want to "Pray before speaking" but more often than not these past few weeks my lips and tongue have moved faster than my prayers. Yeah, gotta pray about that too.  But I promise there have been more attacks on my emotions than the law ought to allow.  And my defensive tongue has been on a crash course to hell.

So now I'm at the moment of "Praying after speaking".  Yes, I still need to "Pray before speaking" but things have been verbalized that need to be forgiven.  I don't mean you any harm.  But my tongue sometimes throws darts that my heart didn't form.