How many of us remember saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." I imagine that if I were in a room full of you then hands would be flying up all around because I am sure that we have all said it. The real question is do we really believe it? Can anyone honestly tell me that they have never been hurt by someone's words? If someone can tell me that then I really want to start hanging around them cause they sure have something special. But I think that we can all agree that at some point in our life we have been hurt by words.

I read this quote the other day and it really stirred something up inside of me.

Wow! What a thought. How many times do we say things through out the day that we wish we could take back? Well after reading this and thinking more about it I decided that I was going to try to make an effort to watch my words.

One of the things that I am passionate about is speaking life into people's lives. I don't want to speak negative words over them. I want to bless them. Several years ago when I was working in the nursery I heard a volunteer comment on this little babies appearance. This baby was probably only about 6 months old and was a little bigger than babies that age. This volunteer looked at this baby and said "look at you, you are just so fat." I am pretty sure that I had to pick my mouth up off of the floor. I could not believe that we were already speaking these horrible and negative words into this babies life. I turned to the volunteers and said "let's not start her off on the wrong foot and having a self image issue." I then turned to the baby and told her that she was beautiful and was wonderfully made by God. She was perfect and was going to change the world when she grew up.

Why do we insist on putting these negative terms on people?

Now I have always been a really positive person. I like to find the good in situations but there are some things that just really get the negativity flowing in me. Things like injustice or people not being treated fairly (myself included), being forced to do things that I really don't want to do, and a few others. Basically if I am being honest I have a tendency to be negative about too many things. So after thinking through things I decided to try to have a more positive outlook on life.

One of the ways to have a more positive outlook is to stop speaking negative words. One thing that I do to people around me when things get to be too negative is I make them say 5 positive things about the situation. I love doing this until someone turns it around on me and asks me to follow through. Why is it so hard for us to find the positive in a bad situation.

I did notice the huge change in my life after adding more positivity. I feel like the first week was such a blessing and the second week was even more blessed. I really felt God's hands in my life and His presence in situations. When you keep adding the positive into your life you tend to start noticing more of God's creation, His grace and His love in the everyday things. You have a better attitude about life and I think that you are generally better at facing the day and whatever may come your way.

I want to challenge you to find the positive in every situation this week. When things start to get to negative then list off the good things about your situation. I guarantee that there are some...sometimes you just have to look harder.