5 THINGS To Ask Yourself Before You Speak

WORDS...must be pretty important.

I mean think about it. God SPOKE things into existence. He said, "Let there be light," and there was light.



Now, He is God. He didn't need to speak the world into its shape using words.

Words can do amazing things.


Words misused can do amazingly awful things.

*   *   *

"Scientists cannot explain it," I remember an oncologist saying to me, a half-smirk on his face, shrugging. It was roughly five years ago, and my then-husband, Dan, had begun chemotherapy treatments.

The treatments immediately caused an inflammation around his lungs, their target. It was as if the cancer and the chemo were in some serious chemical warfare, leaving in their wake the evidence of battle.

Strangely, he lost his voice.

He had no ability to speak. Air was simply not moving past his vocal cords in typical fashion. Cords frozen, air that would normally form words was slipping past, leaving him with only barely audible gasps.

WHY...I asked...would a treatment for lung cancer cause a person to lose his voice?

Well, it seems the nerve that supplies the vocal cord travels an unusual road.

It could simply leave the brain, and truck right on down a highway to the vocal cord.

But, no. It doesn't.

It leaves the brain, travels past its destination, a meaningful and meandering road trip south, down and around the aorta, the main artery of the human body which originates from the left ventricle of the heart.

And, "Scientists cannot explain it." It's an "anomaly," a "mystery."

*   *   *

How extremely clever.   God is so...clever.   THIS...is a clever design.

So the words that leave your brain literally must run past your heart before ascending to the vocal cords to then escape your mouth.

Or, maybe, God was implying that they should.


FIVE THINGS we attempt (and often fail) to ask ourselves in our little family before we utter a word of advice or commentary:


1. Is it TRUE?

2. Is it HELPFUL?

3. Is it your place to say?

4. Is it really your place to SAY?

5. IS IT REALLY YOUR PLACE TO SAY???



So maybe it's really a three step process, but that last one is a doozy...and worth repeating.

Most often it's true, and would be helpful, IF it were my place to say. That's been my experience in a lifelong series of vocal mishaps.

Thanks so much for reading today!

Kelly