{"id":662,"date":"2018-03-27T01:37:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T01:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/?p=662"},"modified":"2018-03-29T05:23:41","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T05:23:41","slug":"if-you-cant-say-something-nice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/27\/if-you-cant-say-something-nice\/","title":{"rendered":"If you can&#8217;t say something nice&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"840\" height=\"630\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xMoRkzT_S_8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>When I was a little girl I told my Aunt that one of our family members smoked.\u00a0 &#8220;Don&#8217;t tell Grandma.&#8221;\u00a0 She said.\u00a0 &#8220;It will break her heart.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I shrunk inside myself, knowing that her warning had come too late.\u00a0 I had already broken my grandmother&#8217;s heart.<\/p>\n<p>It was then that I learned the damaging effects of gossip (though I didn&#8217;t quite know how to define it at the time).\u00a0 I learned that telling the secrets of others&#8211;true or not&#8211;wasn&#8217;t fun or helpful.\u00a0 And that maybe smoking wasn&#8217;t the worst thing a person could do after all.\u00a0 Maybe it was hurting others with our words.<\/p>\n<p>This morning, while driving with Easton, I saw someone I know.\u00a0 I waved to this someone I know.\u00a0 Then I talked about this someone I know.\u00a0 Expressing my opinions about some choices he&#8217;s made.<\/p>\n<p>Again, I chose to be careless with my words.\u00a0 Again, I committed the greater sin.<\/p>\n<p>I quickly repented, telling Easton that I had no right to an opinion on a life I have not walked.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The sin in question is one which I have never been tempted to commit.\u00a0 I will not indulge in futile philippics against enemies I never met in battle.&#8221;\u00a0 ~~C.S. Lewis<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When I&#8217;ve studied the ten commandments, I&#8217;ve never found a passage admonishing me to make sure my neighbor is living them correctly.\u00a0 But I have read that among the greatest commandments&#8211;second only to loving God&#8211;is that I love the someones I know, and even the someones I don&#8217;t know, even as I love myself.<\/p>\n<p>Simply love.\u00a0 Nothing more.<\/p>\n<p>So next time I drive past someone I know, I&#8217;ll wave to that someone I know then I&#8217;ll talk about that someone I know.\u00a0 Expressing the love I feel toward him or her.<\/p>\n<p>And I won&#8217;t say another word about it&#8211;true or not&#8211;not even to my Grandma.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was a little girl I told my Aunt that one of our family members smoked.\u00a0 &#8220;Don&#8217;t tell Grandma.&#8221;\u00a0 She said.\u00a0 &#8220;It will break her heart.&#8221; I shrunk inside myself, knowing that her warning had come too late.\u00a0 I had already broken my grandmother&#8217;s heart. It was then that I learned the damaging effects &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/27\/if-you-cant-say-something-nice\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;If you can&#8217;t say something nice&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions\/664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}