…but words can never hurt me.

An email has been circulating that proposes a cough method of self CPR. It says that if you recognize the signs of a heart attack you can do cough CPR on yourself before you lose consciousness. I am not promoting this, as the success of this method is questionable and snopes.com claims it is false.

We cannot make our own heart beat, we can however, destroy it. We have the power to kill and destroy our hearts all on our own but we do not have the power to bring it back to life on our own. We do however have both the power of life, and death, in our tongues. Our words have the power to bring life to a person, to a conversation, or to our own soul. Remember saying the words “I do,” did that not change your life forever? Or hearing the verdict, “Guilty!” would that not change your world? Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (NIV).

Our everyday words have the power of life and death as well. When gossip is sweeping through a conversation and you stop it with a phrase, does that not bring life to the person who was being destroyed? When someone in your family is telling you their dream and vision and you open your mouth and stomp on it, does that bring life or death to the dream? My own personal snopes.me would discredit the old saying, “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Words bring health and healing, or death and destruction, to those who speak them and to those that hear them.

Want to know how you’re doing in the verbal life and death department? Look at the fruit, the outcome, of your words. The Message Bible puts it like this, “Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit—you choose.” Whatever you choose will have an outcome. “Pleasant words are …health to the body” (Prov 16:24). Speaking life and health to others and yourself, now THAT is self CPR!