The Power of Words

Words are powerful.

This is not a profound statement, but I think it's one that many people underestimate. I realize their power when someone says something hurtful to me, but I'm not to quick to recognize the power when I'm addressing someone else. Maybe it's because I'm aware of my intention in what I'm saying, and my intentions, for the most part, are good. So I expect other people to know that... which is why I'm usually shocked when someone says I hurt them... "well I never meant to you." Profound. That doesn't mean I didn't do it. Regardless of what I intended, someone got hurt. It'd be easy to say "don't feel that way, I didn't mean to," but I can't tell somone how to feel, no more than you can tell a short person how to grow. You can give them heels, but that doesn't fix their height. I can say "don't cry," but that doesn't heal their pain.

When I was in high school I wanted to be a lawyer. I was, and still am, very passionate about justice... and I could argue about anything... ask my mother. My junior year when I actually voiced my desire to be a lawyer to my english teacher, he said something that has stuck with me ever since...

"You can't be a lawyer because you can't write. If you want to learn how to write, read (your younger sister's) paper... she can write."

I never questioned what he said, because it never occured to me that a teacher could be wrong.

That one statement changed a lot about my life... the way I saw myself, the way I saw my sister, the way I thought other people saw me, which prior to that statement I don't think was ever that important... the way people saw me.

As a kid I was always independent and carefree. All of a sudden I needed to prove something... I needed to prove to my teacher that I could write. He needed to know I could write so that I could be a lawyer, as if it depended on his judgment. But I never got that affirmation. So I stopped writing.

The power of words.

A few years back my family recieved a letter from this teacher. He wanted to apologize to all his students and their families for the way he taught and the things he said back when he was still teaching. He explained that at that point in his life he was going through a severe depression and he seemed to take it out on his students. He went on to say that this wasn't an excuse for his actions, but an explanation. Then came the shocker... "I have since then accepted Jesus Christ into my life," and he was asking for our forgiveness. Whoa!

Looking back, I forgave him, but I never actually told him he was forgiven. I just dismissed the letter and thought "good for him." To this day, he still doesn't know that I have forgiven him.

There is power in the lack of words.

My silence toward him is just as powerful as his words toward me.

It wasn't until treatment of this year that I really started writing again... or at least started letting people read what I write. Still in the back of my mind I tell myself I can't write, and people tell me I can, but I don't hear them. I hear that voice. That voice that tells me I can't. That voice that tells me never. That voice that says "she's better." It's a voice from the past that I've allowed to stay in the present for far too long now.

So I have a choice... I can keep listening to that voice, or I can use my own.

The power of his words are no longer going to tell me who I am... and the power of my silence is no longer going to tell him who I think he is.

Whether in a letter, in an email, or on the phone, it's my turn to use powerful words... "I forgive you."