Final Days of Zip It!

Well,  I did it!  I finished the book, Zip It! by Karen Ehman.  It was a suggested study for Lent.  Instead of giving up sweets or Diet Pepsi or watching television or posting on Facebook, the focus was on limiting the words we say and streamlining our thought processes to really think about what we say, how we say the words, and how we react to the words we hear.  My track record on finishing Online Bible Studies or devotional books is not good, but it IS getting better.  This is one I can add to my "FINISHED!" list.    Now granted, I may not have read one devotion each of the 40 days, but I did read #40 on the last day before Easter.  A few days I had to read two or three to catch up, or read a couple ahead during the course of a day, such as when we were on the cruise, but I did finish the lat week with the last set of devotions, one each day.

Through the study I learned several things:

1.  I need to think more before I speak.  I need to select my words carefully and think about the presentation of those words, how I say them, the tone that I use. 

2.  Words have a lasting effect; they are remembered.  They can't be taken back.  Even if someone says 'Oh just kidding' he/she had to think that particular thought first; otherwise it wouldn't have popped out of the mouth.  So 'kidding' doesn't really take the hurt away.  I will never forget a passage that a girl wrote in my autograph book in 7th grade that was really hurtful.  I never felt the same about that girl after that, I couldn't be friend with her, and it affected my entire high school circle of friends.  Today she and I are Facebook friends, and I am fairly sure that she doesn't remember writing what she did and how hurtful it was, but I remember.  Every time I see one of her posts or see her name next to a LIKE on something I have posted, I think about that line in my autograph book years ago.  Hurtful words that have never been erased from my memory.

3.  We can control how we react to the words spoken to us.  This relates, I guess, to what I wrote in #2, but it is a little different.  Today as an adult I still have 'soft skin' so hurtful things said to me do just that, they hurt.  But I can control how I react to those.  I can let them bounce off.  I can focus on my perception of the incident or the event or the subject or topic.  I can think about why the person would make such a remark and, maybe to sound a little trite, 'consider the source.' Sometimes hurtful things are said to make the speaker feel better about himself/herself.  Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances which make the speaker feel threatened or ill at ease.  There could be a myriad of reasons for some remarks, none of which have anything to do with the circumstance or with me.  Knowing what is right and true about myself is the key to NOT allowing those words to hurt me.

Even though I drifted a bit from the true messages from in Zip It!, the application to real life is there.  And that is the point, isn't it, when we read devotional books?  Apply it to our lives and grow from that application.

And that is what I am doing.