Helpful Tip Tuesday: Avoiding Gossip

"Gossip often veils itself in certain phrases:

"Have you heard...?"

"Did you know...?"

"They tell me..."

"Keep this to yourself, but..."

"I don't believe it's true, but I heard that..."

"I wouldn't tell you, except that I know it will go no further."

Of course, the most infamous such rationalization in Christian circles is,"I am telling you this so you can pray." It sounds pious, but the heart that feeds on evil reports leaves flaming fires in its wake. Oh, the heartache that comes from the tongue."

~Barbara Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Woman, pg. 88-89

Anything you would add to this list of possible gossip phrases?

 

A Poem To Remind Me that God Is A Giver

     When we have exhausted our store of endurance,

When our strength has failed ere the day is half done;

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,

Our Father's full giving is only begun.

     His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,

His power has no boundary known unto men;

For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,

He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

~Annie Johnson Flint

Quote from Martin Luther

"Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave."

 

~ Martin Luther

Helpful Tip Tuesday: Courtesy Owed To A Small Child

"In addition to learning how to treat others, children must also be treated well themselves if they are to develop gracious manners. Parents most often think in terms of how they can teach their child to behave toward others and only rarely stop to think of the courtesy that even a small 

child is owed.

Here are the basic courtesies that 

any child is owed:

• Do not talk down. Children may not think or act like adults, but they do know when they are being condescended to, and they do not like it.
• Do not speak babytalk. Apart from the fact that speech experts have determined that babytalk only confuses a child, the child may think this is an acceptable way to speak. And there are few things more ridiculous than an adult speaking jibberish.
• Do not use vulgar language. In today's media-oriented world, with standards at what must be an all-time low, he will learn vulgar language soon enough. There is nothing cute about a two-year-old using obscene expressions that he does not understand.
• Do not, if you can possibly avoid doing so, discipline your child n public."

~Taken from The New Etiquette by Marjabelle Young Stewart

Is there anything you would add to this list?