That'll Leave a Mark
- Denise Dowling
- Jun 30, 2023
- 2 min read
(One of my favorite things is to encourage other writers. Today's guest blog post features JoAnna Jennrich. When not writing she is a busy mom to five amazing kids, wife to Adam and active volunteer at her church.)
You can count on it, any pizza place worth its marinara sauce, will be hopping on a Friday night. Pasta dishes and gourmet sandwiches made by scratch kept this high school girl in spending money, but it didn’t come without pressure. One night, struggling to time the removal of dishes from the oven, I reached for the chicken parmesan without the use of oven mitts. My calloused fingertips could manage the pan, but in my haste, the grate seared my arm. Instantly, a red mark memorialized the moment. With time it healed as all wounds do, but not without a scar.
No one is immune to the reality that being wounded (whether physical, emotional, or spiritual) just comes with the territory. Scars represent both what we’ve been through and how it has shaped us. While we may not always be in control of the source of our scars, we can be in control of the mark we leave on others around us.
As Mothers we teach our children the heavy weight our words carry, but we must also model this behavior in challenging and stressful circumstances. What is my natural reaction after being cutoff in traffic? How do I react to my children after a difficult day? What about the neighbor I just don’t click with? How do I choose to speak?
God has a clear position on the gravity of our words. A quick google search reveals that in the book of Proverbs, Solomon references the power our tongue holds 21 times! The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. (Proverbs 18:21 NIV).
With every encounter during our day, we have a choice as to how we will respond, whether with family, friends, or even a long wait at our favorite coffee shop drive-thru window. We can leave a scalding red mark like the one produced by the scorching oven grate or the hope and positivity that soothes another’s soul. What mark will you choose to leave?
Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity. (Proverbs 21:23 NIV).
Love,
Jo
It is so true that words can encourage or discourage, make you strong or weak, drive you to wealth or poverty, build you or diminish you, but.......they all have common threads......CHANGE. Words powerfully change us and unless the destructive words that spoken over our lives are allowed to be redeemed by our LORD, they can bring great damage to our lives.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to YOU my Lord and my Redeemer! May they bring encouragement, build, support and activate hope to my recipients!
Thanks for your comment!
Proverbs 18:21 has broad application to many aspects of life.
The Mayor of New York City, a subscriber to the theory of anthropogenic climate change/global warming, outlawed wood-fired pizza ovens and gas stoves. Fifty-two years ago, we lived in Norwalk, Connecticut, a suburb of New York City. Here in Texas, Mexican Food is de rigueur; such is wood-fired pizza in New York City. Absent Mexican Food, Frances and I enjoyed terrific (costly) pizzas from a take-out kitchen near our home. Because of the commute time and the distance, picking up dinner on the way home from the Penn Central rail station was a regular task for many, if not most, of our neighbors. The words of Eric Adams will probably stun a vast…
Yes, our words hold so much weight. I loved reading this devotional. Short & powerful. Great job, Jo!
Beautiful JoAnna. And what a cute reference to Nancy’s🥰we all have many scars from those ovens LOL. So incredibly proud to know you and humbled by the Christ like woman you are. God bless you ❤️