We “impress” our children everyday with who we are, what we think, or what we do. These moments may come to our children through our words, but family moments contain more power and lasting effects when they come through instructive events our children can observe.

On Monday nights we have “Family Night” where we have family devotions and our girls are actively engaged in learning. Tonight James taught about making our speech pleasing to God using a tube of toothpaste. After hearing a lot of ‘poopoo words’ to each other lately, I thought the girls needed to be reminded of how powerful the tongue can be.

Here they are with their tubes. The girls were allowed to squeeze all of the toothpaste out of their tubes.

Then daddy told them to put the toothpaste back into the tubes.

“That’s right! The very same thing is true of the words we speak. Have you ever said something that hurt someone’s feelings and heard them say, “You take that back!” You can’t take it back, can you? Once you have said it, it is said. You can’t put the words back in your mouth any more than you can squeeze this toothpaste back into the tube. That is why we need to be very careful about the things we say. The Bible says, “He who holds his tongue is wise.” Proverbs 10:19

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.” Psalm 19:14 Once we have said it, we can’t take it back, so let’s make sure that our words are pleasing to God.

If you would like more info. on family nights, check out http://www.heritagebuilders.com. This family night was taken from the book An Introduction to Family Nights Tool Chest by Jim Weidmann and Kurt Bruner.