Monday, February 9, 2009

The Tongue of Angels-Speaking Kindly lesson by Debbie Morris


Read James 3:2-10

Elder Cree L Kofford said, “Have you noticed how easy it is to cross over the line and find fault with other people? Mercy for me, justice for everyone else is a much too common addiction. There are those among us who would recoil in horror at the thought of stealing another person’s money or property, but who don’t give a second thought to stealing another person’s good name or reputation”

Competition over our differences: Why does a compliment to one have to diminish the value of another? Build and Lift each other
Parable of the Clothesline as told by Camille Fronk Olson:
A clothesline hung with freshly laundered and sorted clothing on Monday morning sent a message to the world that here lived an efficient, hard-working woman. In Grandma's neighborhood, it meant even more, with enviable stakes indeed. A silent competition raged each week to identify the woman who displayed her clean laundry earliest each Monday morning. My mother remembers times when Grandma hustled to have her first load of laundry on the line by 5:30 am only to discover the victory sheets and pillowcases waving on the neighbor's line. "She must have run a batch on Sunday night," Grandma muttered accusingly in her attempt to remain competitive.

Speaking kindly and lovingly to our husbands:
Another husband said, “If you can’t accentuate the positive, at least acknowledge it. The world is full of messages to men that there are standards we don’t meet. There is always another man who is more handsome, more virile, more successful in business or more athletic than we are. None of that matters if the most important person in our life looks up to us, accepts us as we are, and loves us even though we aren’t perfect. A husband who has a wife who supports him and praises him for the positive things he does is the envy of all the other men who have to live with criticism, sarcasm, and constant reminders of their failures.”

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