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Dear Reader,

I was recently blessed and honored to return to the beloved and precious campus of Bob Jones University, where I was blessed to grow up, for the funeral of my beloved mother. She served as a Professor there for 54 years in Speech and Drama. Our family was moved beyond measure as we were surrounded by comfort, love, care, concern, and provision. It was as if Jesus Himself was wrapping us in His tender mercies, comfort, and love. What a beautiful picture of how the body of Christ is meant to treat one another.

What a contrast this is with the world, where such surrounding care is indeed not the case. And how tragic it is when, even among the Saints of God, we fail to guard our tongues—when gossip, slander, harsh criticism, murmuring, and cutting speech replace the kindness, encouragement, appreciation, gratitude, and love that should mark true believers.

These genuine words and deeds that we experienced are treasures that money cannot buy. May the Lord sanctify our words, our speech, and our deeds, that we might better reflect Jesus Christ and the tender mercies we have received.

With grace,
The Poet

Proverbs 16:24 —

Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.

Genuine words and deeds
of kindness, encouragement,
appreciation, gratitude, and love
are treasures that money cannot buy.

Kind words are not small.
They settle like light
on weary shoulders,
naming what is good
when it is easy to miss.

Encouragement costs little
and returns multiplied—
a hand on the back,
a sentence that steadies,
a refusal to join the tearing-down.

Gratitude, spoken or shown,
rewrites the atmosphere
of a room, a church, a home.
Love that is patient with speech
refuses the easy cut
and chooses the harder, kinder path.

Such gifts should be seen in all
true believers. Yet lack of tongue control
is so prevalent in the Saints of God
today—gossip, slander, harsh criticism,
murmuring, and cutting speech.

These remain the marks
that money never measures
and that true believers
are still called to carry.
How tragic is this! How tragic!

Sanctify our words,
our speech, our deeds.