Hung by the Tongue

Yesterday, I used M & M candy to teach high school girls in Sunday school. The lesson, Hung by the Tongue, was about our words.

I passed out little packages of M & M's. This is how we played a game.

Red M & M = Loving words
Blue M & M = Words of encouragement
Orange M & M = Words of hatred
Yellow M & M = Lies we tell
Brown M & M = Ugly thoughts that come out
Green M & M = Jealous words

I remembered back to when I was a little girl. Way back when, I can still remember ugly things I said--including hateful things I said just yesterday. Our neighborhood group of girls was heading to the movies one Saturday. I must have been about ten. All of us wore jeans except for Diana. She wore a church dress. I said, "I can't believe you're wearing THAT to the movies. Nobody dresses up THAT much for a movie."

Diana went home crying and didn't go with us.

I'm 46. This many years later I still remember my "orange" words.

I was hung by my tongue. James 3 is a great place in the Bible to learn all about our tongues. "But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison."

We talked about times we'd hurt our friends with our words. We also talked about the words of encouragement spoken to us and how powerful they are.

Being a writer is hard work--at least for me. Many days I've considered quitting. It never fails. I'll get a hand-written note from someone. "You'll never know how much your story meant to me. Please keep writing. I didn't think anybody else had ever felt this way."

See how it works?

Let's see if we can use blue and red M & M words today to the people around us.

♥Julie