“… a kind word cheers a person up.” Proverbs 12: 25 niv
A winter wind and the summer sun — one prompts to put a coat on and the other prompts to take a coat off. Aesop’s fable on the North Wind and the Summer Sun teaches this.
A hard word or phrase wounds and causes a person to draw within while a kind word heals and open up a heart.
I still remember the harsh word of a sixth grade teacher who blurted out to me in a math class while working, deliberately and slowly, “Hurry up, dummy, you’re slowly the class down!”
Our kind words also accomplish what a verbal buffeting could never do.
Our words can heal; they can inspire; they can empower.
Mother Teresa said, “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
Maya Angelou also said “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”