Words from the Pumpkin Patch

After successfully growing only one little pumpkin in our garden this year and with Halloween just days away, we decided last weekend to load up the minivan with family members and travel to the nearest pumpkin patch.  In twenty years of parenting this was our first trip ever to a local pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins.  Each member of the family wandered through hundreds of pumpkins, trying to find the perfect orange gourd.  We picked them up, turned them over, brushed off dirt, and compared carefully before each of us made a decision.  My oldest daughter settled on one that wasn't orange at all, but a ghostly white.  My youngest son scored the largest pumpkin with a huge stem.  Some of the pumpkins chosen were round and some were tall and oblong.  We loaded up a wheelbarrow and stood in the ample line waiting to pay for our bulging beauties while my daughters delighted over the bins of tiny pumpkins and exotic multi-colored gourds.  Soon pumpkins and colorful gourds of the smaller variety were carefully added to the pile in the overloaded wheelbarrow.  Twenty-six dollars later, we escaped with 90 pounds of beautiful, hand-chosen pumpkins.

As I listened to some of the ugly political rhetoric on the radio on the way home, I thought to myself, "You know it's too bad that we don't choose our words as carefully as we choose pumpkins."  Wouldn't it be great if everyone picked their words, turned them over, brushed off dirt, and compared carefully before speaking?  We wouldn't choose to pick the first pumpkin we see in a pumpkin patch, and so why do we choose our words so carelessly?

Words are powerful.  They can either inspire hopes and dreams or take them away.  They can either build or tear down.  Once words are spoken, both for good and for ill, we can never take them back.  In this world where the loudest voices are often the harshest ones, shouldn't we take the time to bestow charitable words of hope to those around us?

My third great grandfather, Thomas Briggs, wrote these amazing words, "Always have kind words to give, for they are as refreshing to the troubled heart, as rain to the parched ground.  Bear in mind that little drops of rain brighten the world." 

Many times in my life just a few kind words have made all of the difference. 

I love the book, The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  I love even more when the character Aebilene repeats to Mae Mobley, the little girl she cares for, "You is kind.  You is smart.  You is important!"  What would the world be like if we all told our children something like that every day?  What if every mother told her son daily how amazing it was to be his mom?  What if every father told his daughter that he thanked his lucky stars for her every day?  What if every child was tucked in bed at night with a compliment? 

Today, as I dropped my junior high aged son off at school, he stopped, turned around, and told me in front of both of his buddies, "I love you."  Now, my son often tells me that he loves me, but not in front of his friends.  His words have warmed my heart wonderfully all day.

We never know what effect our words will have on those around us, but I know that words matter.   I love the poem, "Lamps" by Lon Woodrum.

I met a stranger in the night,

Whose lamp had ceased to shine;

I paused and let him light

His lamp from mine.

A tempest sprang up later on,

And shook the world about,

And when the wind was gone,

My lamp was out.

But back came to me the stranger-

His lamp was glowing fine;

He held the precious flame

And lighted mine.

Aren't we so very  grateful to all who have been there with their kind words to relight our lamps when they have gone out?  As we light our pumpkin, Jack O' Lanterns this Halloween night, I hope we will remember the power of words and how choosing them carefully can only brighten the world.