The other morning – well, August 12th, to be exact – I was up early, reading Proverbs 12. There are 31 Proverbs and 31 days in most months, so I read one chapter of Proverbs most mornings.

It’s funny how I can read the same words month after month, year after year, for most of my life, and something new pops out at me every single time.

So this particular 12th of this particular month, I saw these words I’d never really noticed before:

The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood…

Have you ever had someone in your life who WOULD happily use their words to draw blood, if it were possible?

I HAVE.

Still do, actually, but his words don’t bother me anymore.

They did when I was married to him, but not anymore, ten years after our divorce was final.

Yeah. Ten years.

Ten whole years in which he has yet to find anything better to do with his time.

Ten years ago, his words never drew blood, per se, but they did leave some pretty significant wounds. That’s the way it is, when someone is supposed to be KIND to you (or love you like Christ loves the church and all that), and instead is hateful, cruel, and abusive, for twelve straight years.

Now? Meh. I see him for what he is: an angry, insignificant little man who is desperate to compensate for some major shortcomings by bullying anyone he thinks he can bully and get away with it. It has nothing to do with me, and EVERYTHING to do with him.

I mean, that’s what Proverbs 12 says, right? It’s about him.

The words of the wicked…

The funny thing is, as I signed into my laptop to write this post, I saw that he (aka ‘anonymous’) had left me yet another comment:

Obviously, it’s from him; The IP address just so happens to match up to his emails. It’s not that hard to figure out. It’s not the first mean comment he’s left, by any means, and not the meanest; just happens to be the most recent one.

He left words to lie in wait for me to find when I signed into my blog dashboard.

Just like he sends me hateful emails almost daily, sometimes multiple times a day, to lie in wait in my inbox, so that I can see them when I sign into my email.

He has sent me as many as 70 text messages in one day with hateful words to lie in wait for me when I pick up my phone.

He really, truly wants to draw blood with his hateful words.

It’s not because of anything I’ve done or not done or said or not said; I haven’t initiated any contact with him in years.

I sure wouldn’t be visiting his blog, if he were ambitious enough to have one, to leave any sort of comment, much less a hateful one.

Nope. All this hate is overflowing straight out of his own heart.

Something in his own heart compels him to send words out to lie in wait for me in hopes that I’ll be hurt or my day will be ruined.

What about the words of the righteous?

• They’re a fountain of life.

• They’re acceptable in God’s sight.

• They’re wise.

• They make people glad.

• They paint a beautiful picture.

• They build up.

• They give grace.

You know, I started writing this blog about thirteen years ago, and it seemed its only purpose was silly and shallow: I was just here for your entertainment.

I no longer think of that as silly or shallow. It’s a serious mission in a world in which we have too many wicked words from wicked people lying in wait for our blood.

If I can put words out into the universe that make people glad, or paint a beautiful picture, or build people up, it seems to me that this world needs more of that.