Speak Life
We, as grown-ups, have the unique “ability” to speak death into situations. Before you wriggle your nose up in disagreement, hear me out. Have you ever heard your kid say something like “I never pick fights with my brother” or “I’m the prettiest princess in the whole world” or “I won’t do that ever ever EVER again, mommy.” And we immediately doubt what they’re saying. Because of past experiences with them. our own life’s woes, and our “realistic” adult view of life, we tell them its not the truth, or we water it down for them. Or we even try to explain why that isn’t true by reminding them of the time they hit their brother just five minutes before, or how miss “princess” marked all over herself with permanent marker and then proceeded to stick her tongue out at you with a stink face on.
WHY oh why do we do this? Science and logic and our “human” brain teaches us that experience or “history” repeats itself. Do you know why it does? Because we speak it! We negate their preciously positive personalities with our negative or logistical words. This has to stop. I struggle with it too. As an adult, Im still recovering from some childhood hurts that I know Im subconsciously speaking back into the generational thread of parenting. Lord stop my words if they don’t give life. Let our kids speak these happy thoughts into existence!
Want to know what the Bible says about this? Good, Im so glad. Well here goes…
“Out of the abundance of his heart, a man speaketh” Luke 6:45
“Decree a thing and it shall be established unto you- and the light will shine upon your ways” Job 22:25
“One’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of their mouth and with the increase of their lips, they will be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue” Proverbs 18:20-21
“Whoso keep his mouth and tongue keep also his soul from troubles” Proverbs 21:23
So when did we stray from this? When did we stop speaking life and joy and positivity just as our children seem to be programmed to? Lets take a lesson also from science.. there were several large studies asking people to rate their health either poor, fair, good or excellent. The ones who rated their health poor were four to five times more likely to DIE within the next few years, despite their medical assessment being similar to the others. Let me rephrase this. People, who were the SAME on their medical chart, faired worse if they spoke that “truth” over themselves.
What would it look like, fellow mommas (and dads) if we allowed our children to speak these pleasant words? And better yet, we follow suit and start speaking them over ourselves? Kind and positive words are as honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healthy to the bones. Let this be an encouragement to you, to seize today and start speaking life into and over every situation you encounter with your children. Teach them well while they are young and break that chain.