To let hurtful words go.
To let them go up in smoke and be dispelled in the wind.
To not capture them in a box and occasionally stick my nose in
and breathe their putridness as if I enjoyed their scent.
To let others' foolishness or wickedness or offensiveness
be simply foolishness as I am foolish sometimes
and hope everyone forgets in a hurry.
To stop sticking their words onto me
with double-sided tape and globs of glue,
to not massage them into my heart of hearts
as if the speaker knew the complications there
and that their words would touch me so.
To not take those words to the laboratory
and dissect them under bright lights
as if they were living organisms.
To not stamp them onto records
and play them repeatedly on my Victrola
as if they were symphonies and I enjoyed them.
To not build my house on them
as if they were universally foundational.
But to let the words go
like yesterday’s weather
or foul scents on the wind
or the garbage at the curb.
To believe the best about someone
even in accordance with those hurtful words—
not to fabricate pure motives,
or excuse them with a colorful past—
but to believe of them what God does.
They are good.
God has said it.
They are pure and right and clean
because of Christ's blood,
even if they have yet to see it there.
They need nothing more for God to love them.
I need nothing more from God to love them.
He has given it already.
Those discordant words have burned
like a sacrifice on the altar
where lies all words, even the eternal one:
the Word that was from the beginning
and is with God
and is God.
Now we fall back onto those eternal words
planted and growing in our minds.
Words worthy enough to stockpile,
oxygenated enough to inhale,
complex enough to dissect,
beautiful enough to repeat again and again,
and strong enough to build upon.
Words that say of us, "Good,"
knowing full well the complications of our hearts
and how these words will transform us.
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