My Heart is Heavy

Perhaps you've heard this story before. 

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the fence.
 
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily, gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.
 
The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said “you have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.”

This weekend, a young girl from our community committed suicide because she was bullied.  She was only 12 years old.  I heard the news on Monday while I was at work.  I went home that night and hugged my daughter tightly.  Every day I tell her I love her, but I told her again. 

"Mom, I know," she assured me.

And she knows that she can talk to us about anything but I told her again. 

"Mom, I know," she told me gently again.

Some of the students decided to hold a candle lit vigil in the parking lot at the school last night.  I wasn't sure about going.  We didn't know the girl.  She went to a different school.  I wasn't sure how my daughter would react to a candle lit vigil for a stranger.  But when I picked her up from school yesterday, before I had the chance to ask her, she said, "Mom, there's a candle light vigil tonight for the girl who committed suicide, and we NEED to go."

I asked why.

"Because this is sad.  And we need to stand together."

Later that evening as we joined my parents to walk to the vigil, my mother asked her the same question, "Why did you want to go tonight?"

She told us that this was sad, and shouldn't have happened, and we needed to stand together.  She said there would be other kids at the vigil and they needed to know that they are beautiful, and they are loved, and they matter to God, and that they were created in God's image and how cool is that, and maybe if they knew that, they wouldn't think of hurting themselves when they were bullied.

From the mouths of babes...

Be careful with your words.  They're more powerful than you think.