The Power of the Tongue

I'm so blessed to be married to such an awesome guy. I really am. Yesterday, I was so sick all I could do was lay on the couch with a bucket in one hand and a remote in the other. It was awful. And Stephen was sooo sweet to sit by me and keep me entertained. He ran errands twice getting me whatever I wanted. He takes such good care of me.
He's always been good for me. We have so much fun together. We do fun things. We lay around like lazy bums together. But my favorite moments together--the reasons I fell in love with him, even--are the times we just sit around and talk. Come to think of it, those are my favorite moments with all my friends. Granted I'm a talky person. But that's pretty much where a relationship exists right? In communication?
Proverbs 18:20 tells us "From the fruit of their mouth a person's stomach is filled; with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied." So true right? We have to have this interaction. It goes on to verse 21 to say, "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit." The words we absorb from our friends, our family--those words have power. They can make us or break us. The words we love the most--the words we surround ourselves with--those words are the "fruit" we eat. The question is whether those words mean life or death to us.
So this is a big deal. The verse calls for us to be aware, more than anything, of what we're doing. It calls for a change in communication. This change in communication will  change in every relationship we have in two ways. First of all we change the relationships we do have because we change ourselves to communicate in a more God-like way. Second, we surround ourselves with other people who talk in the way Proverbs describes.
That's a big change. More to come on what that change looks like.