Mackenzie tried to smooth the wrinkles out of her skirt as she stepped inside the church. She knew it was the same one she’s worn for the past few weeks, but the fire took all of her clothes and the insurance money wouldn’t come for another week. Would the others notice? She hoped not.

Even though she knew it was what was inside your heart that matters, it embarrassed her to wear the same thing all the time. The postal strike had delayed everything and the money she had needed to go towards food for her and the kids. Being a single mom was so hard.

Her two girls scooted inside the church to their classes, leaving her alone to represent her small family.

Mackenzie smiled at the greeters and held out her hand. “Morning,” she said in a soft voice as if that would hide her shame.

“Good morning,” the man said. “Nice to have you here again.”

“Thank-you.”

“Hi Mackenzie! It’s great to see you and your girls,” the woman said. “You look lovely my dear.”

Mackenzie couldn’t remember her name, but was grateful for the compliment. She shook her hand and said, “Thanks.”

“Enjoy the service.”

Mackenzie smiled and headed towards the double doors to the sanctuary. Still within earshot, she heard the woman snicker and say to her husband. “You think she’d wear a different skirt for once, and iron it.”

The man laughed, but shushed his wife.

Mackenzie sighed and hung her head as she slipped into the last pew.

If God could bleep us when we say something He wouldn’t approve of, do you think He would have done it to this lady? Of course! We don’t know people’s circumstances, so we should keep comments like this to ourselves.

How many times have you said something you regretted? Wish you could do the 10 second delay as they do on TV? I know I have. So many times I’ve said to myself, “Darlene, WHY did you say that?”

Truth be told, I believe if God bleeped us when we said something we shouldn’t, there would be a lot of bleeping going on! Let’s face it, we speak before we think. We type an email and hit send before we give ourselves that 10 second delay. It should be the other way around.

Admit it…you’re just as guilty as I am.

Satan uses our tongues as the most powerful weapon against each other. Even without us knowing. The wrong words (spoken, written, or typed) can do more damage than a sword. When I put “tongue” in the search engine of BibleGateway.com you wouldn’t believe how often it comes up throughout the Bible. 126 times! And you know most of those occurrences are negative ones.

When will we learn to watch what we say? I want to use my tongue for good, so I vow to try harder. How about you?

Let’s pretend God can bleep us and think before we speak!

Proverbs 18:21 (NASB)

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”