Beauty and Destruction – The Power of Ice (and Words)
We woke up this morning to a covering of ice. It is beautiful. I couldn’t stop looking at it. I braved the cold to take some pictures and videos of the icicles forming and covering the trees. Seeing the glistening of the ice on the woods next to our house made it worth walking through the crunching grass to get a close up view of how the ice had overtaken everything.
Ice can be beautiful.
Ice refreshes. There’s not much better than an ice cold drink on a hot summer day. A coke that is just cold enough that ice is almost forming in the bottle quenches a parched tongue. When I’m on a hot beach there’s nothing I like better than ice.
Ice is pretty. I remember going to a party once that had ice sculptures everywhere. We marveled at the beauty of the ice.
There are even hotels made entirely of ice. The one in Japan is beautiful.
Ice can be destructive.
They cancelled our kids’ school because last night’s ice storm knocked out power to around 75,000 homes. The kids’ schools had power outages so they couldn’t have class today. (They’re pretty happy about that).
Power lines and trees crumble underneath the destructive weight of ice. It can cause problems both on the roadways and on structures of buildings.
In 1994, a severe ice storm caused over $1 billion in damage in the Southern United States, primarily in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama.
So What?
As I was thinking of both the beauty and destructive capability of ice, I thought of this verse: Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits (Proverbs 18:21).
Words are not much different than ice. They have a beautiful way of encouraging people or helping them through tough times.1
An encouraging word to someone can brighten their day and make them feel like a million bucks.
Words can also have a destructive power to them as they can tear down reputations and lives in an instant.
Our words can be used for encouragement and refreshment or they can be used to destroy and bring down. I hope that the words that I say will be seen as beautiful, bringing life and light to those around me.
Naturally, our words are almost always used to serve our own interests and bring others down. Since Jesus changes everythingHow are you letting Jesus change the way you use your words?
1. For more information about the topic of words, I encourage you to watch Pastor Josh’s series called “Sticks and Stones” on Vimeo. This message in particular has me thinking about this topic in my own life.↩