Diarrhea of the mouth....

This article on Boundless Webzine hit home with me. It's totally what I'm going through right now. In the article, the author, in response to another story that was posted on the site (which was fictional, by the way), describes how she stuck her foot in her mouth and then felt horribly afterward:

How snobby. How self-centered. How very much like me. I actually said something similar to this a couple weeks ago standing outside a Ruby Tuesdays. I was with a group of girlfriends and as we were talking I kept smelling smoke. "Why does it smell like smoke out here?" I asked with obvious disdain.

It was sort of a rhetorical question so it didn't bother me when none of my girlfriends answered. A few minutes later a friend on my left switched standing positions which gave me a clear view of a lady with a cigarette not 5 yards from us. My stomach sank. I knew she'd heard me.

When she went back into the restaurant I apologized to my friends for my comment. Well, I don't know if I actually apologized but I said something to the effect of, "Man, I feel like a jerk." One of my more honest friends said, "You are a jerk when you speak without thinking."

Ouch. That stuck with me for at least a week afterward. The kind of sticking with you that makes you cringe with every remembrance.

I know exactly how that feels! Every time I replay what happened recently with my friend Liz, the guilt and shame resurfaces. Ouch is right!

From the age of 5 until 13, I went to a private Christian school. At 5, pretty much everyone in my class was friends. By the time I got to 13, I had 1 whole friend. In between that time, I gradually got uglier and chubbier and the kids became more aware of that and of the fact that I didn't have as much money as they did. As a result, I was completely ostracized and disregarded. If I tried to speak to someone or give an opinion, I was completely ignored. I did not exist to those people. So, I learned to not speak at all and have no opinion.

Alas, I was forced to go to public High School at 14 and it was there I learned that not everyone hated me. I also learned that I had a voice. That revelation was a good thing AND a bad thing.

Once I became a little more comfortable with myself, I sort of flipped out and decided that the whole world needed to hear me and my opinions at all times... and they needed to take it. I got myself into a little nasty habit of always speaking my mind and not caring what anyone thought about it or whom I was offending.

Well, what I've begun to realize in the last few years is that this behavior is not okay. Yes, being excluded and cut off was not okay, but neither was me being so outspoken and reckless with words. The latter was hurtful to me and the former is hurtful to others. Neither is acceptable. (I know there are many people I have hurt with my words, even if a lot of the time it was totally unintentional.)

I went from one extreme to the other and, as in most situations, you're better off somewhere in the middle. That's where I'm trying to be now. I'm trying to tame my tongue because if I'm not careful, it can cause a lot of evil. Verses like this one have made that abundantly clear to me:

James 3:7-10
All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.