Words are singularly the most powerful force accessible to humanity. We have the choice to use this power to build someone up with encouragement or destroy a person with one destructive word. We’ve been reminded ever since we could talk to: Be careful with your words, once they are said, they can only be forgiven, not forgotten.Proverbs 18:21 reminds us: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits." As a writer, I’m well aware of how my careless words have pierced my husband’s heart. In fact, the first time I tore my husband down was a moment I’ll never forget. Chris had promised once I finished college we would move from the middle of Nebraska to Florida.As a woman whose soul is tempered by any body of water, I had big dreams to live by the ocean. When the time came Chris had already established a solid career in the agricultural field and Florida didn’t exactly fit into his career path.One evening we hashed it out and he said no. Frustrated and filled with sarcasm I said, “Fine, I’ll move down there without you and if you don’t follow, then we can just get a divorce.”I never saw a man fall as quickly as he did. I didn’t mean it one bit. I didn’t realize how effortlessly I obliterated my husband’s confidence, purpose, and self-respect in one simple, off-handed comment.In the book Love as A Way of Lifeby Gary Chapman, he uses a vivid metaphor for words as being either ‘bullets or seeds’. If we use our words as bullets, we lose the ability to restore a relationship but if we use our words as seeds, we can rebuild a relationship. Words have power to help, to hinder, to heal, to hurt, to humiliate, or to humble.Words can inspire and words can destroy your man. Choose yours well. As one vital rule, the word divorce should never be mentioned in a marriage. Now that we have that established, here are five phrases never to be uttered at all costs.
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