The Power of Words

Last week I got three very nasty comments from an anonymous commenter who attacked my character big-time. I've taken them down because I don't want to get in a peeing match here, and because they made my sister cry. Peeing matches are never worth it. I will say the commenter called me hurtful names, by far the kindest of which was "glutton."

So last night I found myself eating an enormous bowl of ice cream and chasing it down with Oreos. I don't even really like Oreos. I had been eating non-stop all day, but when I put Margaret to bed I went back to the kitchen looking for something, anything, that would fill me up. "What's going on? Am I getting my period?" I wondered. Nope.

And then it dawned on me. The words, which I tried not to let sink in, were somehow getting inside me. I had been called a glutton, which at first seemed utterly laughable, but now I was acting like one. I think she meant it in a figurative sense, but try telling that to a stomach full of Twizzlers. And glutton was by far the most innocuous thing she had said about me. What about the others? Were those hateful words seeping into me, making me doubt my worth, as the commenter hoped?

Maybe.

It made me think about words.

And how when a teenage boy carelessly labels a girl a slut on Facebook or through the rumor mill, the girl starts to see "slut" when she looks at herself in the mirror. "Why not act like one," she wonders,  "if everyone already thinks I am one anyway?" What about other words?

Lazy. Stupid. Ugly. Despised. Unreliable. Incompetent. Worthless.

What about Bad Mother? (Sometimes we call ourselves names, too.)

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Martin Luther King, jr.

I don't have much to write today, but I want to leave you with a few words to put in your pocket and pull out when you need them:

Beloved. Beautiful. Smart. Worthy. Wonderfully Made. Cherished. Capable. Kind.