Be Careful Little Tongue
After the devotional with the whole church in the auditorium, little girls with freshly-curled hair, frilly dresses over can-can slips, white anklets, and black patent shoes and little boys with Brylcreemed hair, white shirts, bow ties, dress pants, and black leather shoes scrambled off to Sunday School in the basement. We sat down noisily in little wooden chairs around little wooden tables where our teacher awaited us.
We each licked a star to put on the attendance chart. We listened to the Bible story, used a brad to attach an object to our handwork for the day, and received our baseball-card-sized Bible story card to take home. We sang “Jesus Loves Me,” “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” and “The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock.” We also sang:
Be careful little eyes what you see.
Be careful little eyes what you see.
The Father up above is looking down in love,
So be careful little eyes what you see.
We sang to our ears, telling them, “Be careful what you hear;” to our hands, telling them, “Be careful what you do;” and to our feet, telling them, “Be careful where you go.” Finally, we got to the verse:
Be careful little tongue what you say.
Be careful little tongue what you say.
The Father up above is looking down in love,
So be careful little tongue what you say.
Back then it was a little unnerving to know that my Father up above was looking at me all the time. Now I am comforted to know that He is looking down in love. I certainly don’t want Him to take His eyes off me for a minute. That would be disaster!
We mothers need carefully to consider that last verse. One of our mottos should be, “Be careful little mama what you say.” How can something as invisible as a word be so powerful? Powerful for good and powerful for ill.
Some words should be avoided at all cost. Words like lazy, sloppy, and stupid–a word that would make it into a G-rated movie, but just might be more harmful for our children to hear from us than one of the words that pushes a movie into other ratings.
Our job every day is to teach lifelong lessons to our children. Sadly, lazy, sloppy, and stupid have a way of sticking for life, but what we want to stick for life are words like:
“I have loved you since before you were born.”
“Wow, you are so good at ______________.”
“Of all the blessings God has ever given to me, getting to be your mother is one of my favorites.”
Don’t you know it made Jesus feel wonderful when He came up out of the water after John baptized him in the Jordan River . . .
And behold, a voice out of the heavens said,
“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
Matthew 3:17
Oh how true this is, words have a lasting affect. My husband visited with a family that had just lost their husband/father in preparation for his funeral. One of the daughters said that her father always called her a “worthless runt”, however it was his term of endearment for her and she remembered it fondly. Another man who is in his late ’90’s now, also had a father that told him he was “as dumb as a fence post and wasn’t worth the milk it took to save him”. Those words spoken so many years ago still haunt him, even though his father has been gone for many years.
Great examples. I hurt for the man in his 90s. How very sad.
Yes, I too hurt for him. He ran a very successful business before retiring, and was/is in no way, shape, or form dumb. But he still can’t quite get over those cruel words.
Poor dear. Oh, parents are so important. We really have a great deal of power for good or ill. I’m thankful for all the homeschooling mothers who are using it for good.
This is so true! Thank you for an important reminder. I also need to be mindful of my facial expressions and body language, which I’m sorry to say sometimes convey frustration when my son interrupts me or otherwise seems demanding.
Being a mom is almost the definition of full-time. Our kids see us in almost every situation–and sometimes that is when we are frustrated. Somehow we need to balance being extremely careful and also forgiving of ourselves.