Words

I am a strong believer in the power of words.  Taking thoughts and putting them into words helps an individual understand his or her own ideas, distill them, and be able to grasp the ramifications of them.  It requires that person to be more precise and clear about what is going on in his head.  When I taught philosophy, I often had students write not because I needed to read their thoughts (although doing so was a great privilege!) but because I wanted them to find the words for their own thoughts.  For hundreds of years, men and women have kept journals or diaries for this same reason.

Words also allow ideas to be communicated from one person to another. Games like Pictionary and Charades are based on the fundamental concept that we communicate quite efficiently and effectively with words. To try to get those same ideas across without words is a challenge that brings with it equal amounts of laughter and frustration.

You may think that I am a biased linguistics nerd (which is true...) and give words altogether too much credit.  But God does the same thing.  In John 1, the name He picks for Jesus is "The Word".  Without Jesus, God might have dwelt in our heads as a vague, imprecise idea.  But then the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  God told us exactly who He is and what He is like in the person of His Son.  Jesus is a tangible representation of God's character, one that we are more equipped to understand.  Linguists of the world, you are hereby validated!

Sometimes we avoid the clarity and understanding that words afford out of intellectual laziness...we just don't care enough to take the time to put our ideas into words.  Sometimes, though, we avoid speaking or writing our thoughts because we really don't want to acknowledge what they mean.

Yesterday my husband and I sat down for one of many difficult practical conversations we have to have in the next few weeks.  Most couples, I am sure, talk a little bit about their plan for childbirth.  You know, who will watch the older kid(s), when to leave for the hospital, what to pack, what preferences you have for during labor and delivery, who can come visit while mom is still in a hospital gown, etc. 

But we had to change that list a little.  Who will get our daughter there in time to take a picture with her little brother?  Who can come visit while Arthur is still alive?  What do we want to pack to occupy ourselves for a lonely night in the hospital with no baby to nurse and cuddle?  

These are issues we've both thought about over the last month.  But words are so powerful.  When I heard these questions coming out of my mouth, I broke down.  Those are words you never want to hear yourself say.  Putting those ideas into words makes them so tangible.  Once the words are out there, you have to confront the reality that they represent. 

So, we confronted some reality.  And it hurt.  But after we talked and cried and cried and talked, God dried our tears and comforted our hearts.  He has been so good to allow our grief to ebb and flow in such a way that it rarely overwhelms us. 

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him." - I John 4:9 NIV