"sticks and stones may break my bones, but words..."

yikes!

Well, it’s not April anymore ☺

I don’t even know where to begin!

I’ll try to go in sequence by month… but I place no word on my honor that I will stick to that.

May:
Well, I finished my first semester at Southeastern. I enjoyed that I could take more specialized classes, but it got awfully quiet some days.
Tina and I joined the GLF youth leaders for a day in Destin. Many thought we were silly to drive all that way just to stay one night, but it was a lot of fun.
Work this summer was work… I got asked to work in the office next summer (this summer coming up), though, so that was cool. I was waiting to see if God wanted me to travel this summer, but if I work in the office, I’ll get paid more and save so that I can travel.


Wow. This is looking really boring already. I’m just going to skip around to the interesting stuff ☺

Two of my good friends got married this summer. That was strange. People my age are getting married! I’m not gonna lie, either… I had the married fever for a while.

Ok. This isn’t working…

God has been teaching me a lot recently. I’m learning things about myself and others.
Some things are changing, in my opinion, for the worse, and I’m realizing that I can’t change things in my own strength, but have to rely on God to do the changing. For example, I talk too much now.

[anyways]

a verse that has really been running through my head lately is Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Usually, this is quoted to girls when someone is telling them to be weary of any intimate relationships with guys… but I believe this isn’t just for that, but also concerning friends, those we acquaint ourselves with, and even thoughts and ideas. It’s like Mr. Frank always says, ‘You have to have one hand outstretched to the world, and another held up in guard.’ We are in the world and not of it… and I think it’s hard as Christians to be in the world and not of it.

as a key example (something that has actually been bothering me):
I was hanging out with a few friends the other night, and one of them called something that were working on a name. I had never heard this come out of that person’s mouth before, and to be honest, I always thought I was safe from hearing it around them. It hurt to find that I was wrong- not for me, but I pitied tham that they felt they had to do this to be accepted. And then later they used an abbreviation of a word and then another friend used it. Why do you need to say that? Is it necessary? Use your words!

And I am not tying to sound condemning or legalistic- really, I’m not. I just feel that as Christians we have to constantly be on guard. This world isn’t our home. We are Aliens.
I think that working with kids had made me more aware of this than most. I don’t ever want a kid to hear something come out of my mouth that I don’t believe they could repeat back to me.

doesn’t God tell us how powerful words are in the Bible?

Proverbs 25:11 “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”
Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”

Anyway- sorry for the tangent. That has just been on my heart for a while now. And by no means do I find myself perfect in this area. I still have regrets… I wish I could take back things I said, or wish I had said something more…

*sigh*

Christians, stand out!
Be different!
Fight with me to win this world back!

Signed:
lucy lamenter

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