New and Different

This week has been so new and different for me. I know, I know..my week of new things was at least two weeks ago...the newness should have given way to routine by now...and maybe it has. Who knows? Lol. I guess its true. I'm random.
Biggest take away from this week. Words hurt. Now...don't get yourself all worked up...I'm not here licking my wounds or bitter...in fact most of the scenarios that have come to teach me this truth did not even involve words about me. But I think my perspective is changing. You see, for some time now I have been a closet busy-body. I always want to be the one in the know. I want to have a personal knowledge that I know someone better than you. I may let you talk on and on about how much you know somebody or an event that you saw...but inside I snuggle up with the idea that I already know..probably better than you know..
Things are different now. I have truly stepped out of the bubble of Liberty University where everyone sugar-coats opinions and re-phrases issues into constructive criticism. Now, I have entered the real world, where people are blatant in their dislike of others and not afraid to tell you about it. I think this week I just have grown disgusted with two-facedness. Knowing that someone is saying something terrible and ugly and watching their demeanor turn angelic when someone else walks in the room has become such a deterrent to me. I am disgusted by people who feel free to air their grievances to the whole world...or worse yet, to make accusations as if they are one-hundred percent accurate based on third party information.
Why does this bother me? Well, because words are like pebbles hurled at a window that cause it to chip. Eventually with time and changes in pressure and changes in weather that chip becomes a crack, then a big crack, then your whole window has to be replaced. Hurtful words-regardless of their truth value-launch that pebble that starts that crack in your perception of someone or something. More harmful words...even if they are groundless cause that crack to expand and expand and expand. Slivers of doubt and second thinking begin to cloud your judment and you find yourself completely over-analysing decisions and situations. Or you find your perceptions of others' character changing based on groundless, unfair accusations.

I think the better question might be...why has this never bothered me before?
They say that the faults we find worst in others are ones that live most strongly in our own lives. Its true. I am two-faced. My words might still be covered with that sugar-coating, but their intent is still destruction. I may put a positive spin on my opinions, but I still communicate the philosophy of death. My heart condemns me. But there is one who is greater than my heart who offers himself in exchange for my two-faced self. And His WORD is the only one reliable.

"By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him, for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything."-1 John 3:19-20