Refine It, and Sweeten It, and Sanctify It!

Refine it, and sweeten it, and sanctify it!

(Alexander Smellie, "The Hour of Silence" 1899)

"The tongue has the power of life and death!" Proverbs 18:21 

"For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body." James 3:2 

My tongue is a great power. 
Its words wound--or else they cure. 
They poison--or else they bless. 
Once they have gone forth from me, shot like arrows into the air--they will find their lodgment, and they will accomplish their errand. 
I cannot recall them. 
I cannot cancel and undo them. 
For weal or for woe--they have sped away from me. 

There is a sense in which my words are my deeds; they achieve as much--of mercy or of misery, of healing or of harming--as my actions do.

Far too often my tongue has been an agent of mischief and hurt. It has spoken untenderly or untruly, harshly or hastily. 

My tongue has suggested unworthy motives to the deeds of others. It has magnified their failures and errors. It has been a firebrand. It has distributed bitter and corroding acids--instead of the honeycomb. Sometimes it has been the propagandist of actual sin!

My Lord, consecrate and keep this tongue of mine. Refine it, and sweeten it, and sanctify it! May it love . . .
  the voice of prayer, 
  the voice of confession, 
  the voice of encouragement, 
  the voice of consolation and comfort, 
  the voice of worship and thanksgiving!

Source:  Grace Gems - March 5th, 2014

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            Many years ago, one of my cousins, now long dead, thinking I had kept up with family history better than he, asked me if I knew the burial place of his great grandparents.  Like so many, too late, he had revived his interest in his family's genealogy.  Of course, he knew that it had many years since I had seen anything.  I told him, "I understand that the Underwoods were buried in the Falling Creek Baptist Church cemetery.  Someone said that during a hurricane, at some time in the past, the tombstones had been toppled over and were still laying on the ground."  You see, this is how much appreciation we show to our ancestors.  The ones who fought the good fight to give us our heritage.  Their voices and their bodies are long gone and we don't even know or protect their burial places.  Every time I've passed an old cemetery, so many, so many graves, old tombstones, I think how soon they have all been forgotten. 

            At a family reunion, one of my aunts had used her new recorder.  She was so proud of having recorded-preserved voices of old family members, now long dead.  I remember the very distinctive voice of Aunt Sarah, still very alert at 98.  Surely some of her great grandchildren, etc. would have liked to have heard her voice.  But, the aunt is long dead and there is no telling what happened to the recording.  This is how much family history, family voices, means to those who are left behind. 

           

            This antiquarian book collector, buying and selling collectibles every day around the world, has purchased boxes of old books from several families.  In the boxes, in the books, such wonderful family member memorabilia, such as old photographs, and of course, no one had taken the time to write on the photograph who it was, date, or relationship.  In a day even children carry around a telephone with which they can make pictures.  In my lifetime, photographs were very rare.  I well remember the first color film.  Several generations ago, many people lived their entire life without ever having their "picture taken."  The old box camera was very evident when I was a child.  Almost as important as in care in what we say, "words mean something," is remembering voices, the conservation of family history, and protecting photographs.