Verbal Accessories

{Julie is without question the most grace-filled woman I have had the privilege to meet.  She is kind and wise and her words are saturated with truth spoken in love.   Each Monday she shares encouragement for marriage on her blog, Come Have a Peace.   This post from a few months ago, is one that I have read several times to remind me what my accessories ought to be.  ~ Teri Lynne}

Last week we hosted missionaries from Eastern Europe during our Global Missions Conference. On Saturday I had a cultural experience; I went to the MALL. I don’t go to the mall often, so there’s always a bit of a jolt. I realize how out of style I really am. :) As I walked past the window dressings, I noticed the accessories. Wide belts are definitely IN (I don’t have one) this year. Trends are always changing. An accessory adds so much to an outfit.

As I interact with women and wives of all ages and stages, I’m aware of how our words accessorize us. There’s a new trend the seems to be “dressing” the looks of many women today. It’s not a wide belt or a leopard print. It’s the words we use, and it’s definitely adding to the overall statement many women are making. My own culture is shifting to more casual, crass, and often crude language. How are our verbal accessories contributing to our marriage relationships?

Proverbs 8:13 tells us the Lord hates evil and perverse speech.So where are Christian women getting ugly dressings?

Where are these ugly accessories coming from? 

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.  For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”  Luke. 6:45.

It isn’t just a matter of training our tongue; lovely language begins in a lovely heart. If we hear ourselves sprinkling in more crass, careless, or crude language, it may be a reflection of a heart that’s becoming callous to what God considers ugly versus what He sees as beautiful. If we’re having a steady diet of media (reading, movies, tv, etc) that includes a seasoning of crass language, we will gradually lose our distaste for it. Hey, it’s not hard to see why we forget what true beauty is when we take inventory of the messages the world around us constantly feeds us. The world would have us believe language that’s a little edgy, a little dirty, a little bold is beautiful.  How easily we are deceived. God makes it clear what it beautiful to Him here.

Verbal accessories that add to our beauty as women and as wives are seasoned with grace.We won’t be prepared to speak with grace to the unbelieving world if we haven’t gotten in the habit of holy talk with our closest friends and family or when no one is listening. Husbands find it awkward to see their wives as worthy of honor and dignity, a person of beauty inviting his tenderness, when a wife has dressed herself in an image that’s not feminine and lacks in gentleness. It’s hard for a man to cherish his lady when she doesn’t act like much of a lady.

I’m not talking about being a diva or a pansy; language under control is an accessory of strength and beauty. Anyone can be common. It takes a wise woman to nurture her language.

By sifting out low language, we not only make ourselves more feminine, more soft, and more beautiful for our husbands, but we “dress” ourselves in accessories that speak of godly beauty to the watching world. 

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our husband could describe our speech as tender, gentle, comforting, and clean? And wouldn’t it be worth of praise if the world could say we must be a follower of God, because our language is so like what they know of Jesus?

Wide belts may be “in” this year, but lovely, gentle, clean verbal accessories are always “in” for the woman of God. May our words make our marriages and all of our relationships more beautiful in every season.

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”