Healing old “word wounds”

by David Goodman

“Sticks and stones,” the saying goes, “can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Wishful thinking, that! We hope children will believe it, but deep down we know better. Bones heal. Our spirit, our psyche, our lives can be broken and scarred for life by hurtful words. We all know people who have yet to heal from old “word wounds.”

How easily we parents can wound the ones we love most.

I remember an incident from my childhood in Africa. I was six. My father, a missionary, had a friendly bet with my dorm parent who was preparing lunch for a long trip we were about to take. Evidently Dad said I would not want mustard on my sandwich and she, based on her several months’ experience with me, was certain I would. She beamed at my father when I chose mustard. Later, as we ate our sandwiches, Dad expressed surprise at my choosing mustard. I could hear the disappointment in his voice. Looking back now, I imagine he wished he’d known me better, or perhaps wished he’d raised me to have better taste. All I knew then was I had disappointed my father. I can still feel the pain of that conversation.

Later, when my parents first visited me as a brand new pastor, I remember how I longed for some words of commendation from my father. Mom kept trying to make up for his lack, but that only served to underline the absence of affirmation from Dad. “Silence speaks loudly” and in such situations, we substitute words. What I “heard” from my father was, “David, I see nothing worth affirming here.” What a deep wound.

Years later, some wonderful Christian friends pushed me to raise the issue with my father. In one of the most difficult conversations I ever initiated, I told him how much it hurt that he rarely said he loved me or affirmed me. He immediately acknowledged, “Yes, Mom always tried to get me to do that more.” He went on to express regret and explain that his father rarely affirmed him and it had been difficult for him do so with me. In that moment I realized that he and I (and probably my grandfather as well) all shared the same wounds.

To my surprise, after that conversation, my father began taking the opportunity to affirm me and even say he loved me, multiple times! I can’t tell you how healing that was for me ... and him. He’d always loved me, but his own “word wounds” kept him from showing it and left him wounding me in unintended ways.

Perhaps one of the most important lessons I learned from my father was the power of exposing old “word wounds” so the Spirit of God can bring healing and even more importantly, so that we do not wound others as we, ourselves, have been wounded.

Some helpful scriptures about the power of our words:
   Prov. 12:18, 15:1, 15:4, 15:23, 16:24 and James 3:1-12.

David G. Goodman
President, Entrust


From David's President's Perspective on the Entrust web page. To read more of David's President's Perspectives, go to www.entrust4.org/PP