Tongue-taming

"Everytime you hurt someone by your words, you hurt me the most"

These are the very words God whispered to me this morning as I was begging him to talk to me.

We have this exercise in our group wherein everyone is encouraged to listen to the voice of God especially when you wake up in the morning. Because according to them, the very first thought that comes to mind when you wake up is the word of God.

I must admit, the very first thing I did upon waking up today was to pray, asking God for everything that I want on this day.

While I was on the bus on my way to work, I remember this exercise we have regarding the voice of God. Then I realized that I didn't have one. And I realized that I didn't have one because I didn't give God the chance to talk to me. Because all I did upon waking up was to tell Him what I want, without even asking Him what He wants for me to do today.

And so again I prayed. I begged, begged and begged for God to talk to me. While doing this, my attention was shifted to all my "busmates", as expected most of them are locals.

Thoughts about my "busmates" filled my mind..how I hate them, how dirty they are, etc, etc...then my eyes turned to one woman wearing a cap, the ones construction men normally wear at work. And in a snap, disgust turned to admiration. I have never seen a "construction woman" in my own country.

Then a whisper came: "next time be very careful on how you think about your fellowmen so you won't "eat" your own words."

Voila! Voice of God!

I then recalled the dream I had last night and the time when I was reading the Gospel this morning:

My dream last night:
I had a fight with a friend and the one scene that keeps coming back to mind is the part where I wanted to talk evil words to express my anger but I stopped myself. And in the dream, a message was so clear: the bad words you will say will never fix the problem, it will just worsen and may cause regrets later on.

Reading the Gospel:
I normally read the Daily Gospel in the morning before going to work. In the Daily Gospel, there will always be a reflection but for me, I never read the reflection because I would want to reflect on my own first without the influence of someone else's reflection. But this morning was different, I read the reflection. And while I was reading it, I was thinking there got to be something for me that God wants to tell me. After reading the reflection, I thought it was so far from the Gospel, there was no connection at all. But the thought of the last few sentences never escaped me. It said something like everytime you say bad words, you are hurting God.

Back to the bus: All these thoughts of my dream last night and today's Gospel reflection from the daily Gospel came back.

And it then became very clear to me:

God doesn't like it when His children speak ill of his/her brothers and sisters. Not even in our thoughts because God hears.

If only we can live a life with only one ultimate goal which is to love God, everything will follow.