A Lesson in Toothpaste

I recently read about a mom who compared our words and tongue to a tube of toothpaste.  I thought it was such a great visual that I decided to share it with my children.  At lunch one day I asked Cody, Anna, Dylan, and Abigail to each squeeze some toothpaste out of its tube onto a plate until it was completely emptied.  Then I asked them to put it back into the tube.  Anna’s reaction was priceless, her face shocked as she exclaimed, “That’s impossible!”  Then I went on to share what this other mom shared with her children:

“You will remember this plate of toothpaste for the rest of your life. Your words have the power of life or death.  You are going to see just how much weight your words carry. You are going to have the opportunity to use your words to hurt, demean, slander and wound others. You are also going to have the opportunity to use your words to heal, encourage, inspire and love others.

You will occasionally make the wrong choice; I can think of times in my own life where I have used my own words carelessly and caused harm. Just like this toothpaste, once the words leave your mouth, you can’t take them back. Use your words carefully. When others are misusing their words, guard your words. Make the choice every morning that life-giving words will come out of your mouth. Decide tonight that you are going to be a life-giver. Be known for your gentleness and compassion. Use your life to give life to a world that so desperately needs it. You will never, ever regret choosing kindness.”

As I shared with my kids around the lunch table, you couldn’t hear a pin drop.  Afterwards, they sat silent for a moment.  I assumed they were processing the magnitude of their words.  Unfortunately/fortunately, they have also learned another lesson from me, the lesson of waste.  Anna spoke up, confused, “Mom, you could have just told us that.  You didn’t need to waste a tube of toothpaste.”  Then Dylan, Cody, and Abigail chimed in, “Yeah, we needed that!”  Okay, so that didn’t quite go as planned.  Seriously, though, there was like travel-size amount left in it, folks!  Oh, well.  Shawn is convinced, despite the lesson on waste, that they did take another lesson away from this conversation.  Who knows?  I can imagine them all sitting around talking about this when they are adults, “Remember the time when Mom wasted a whole tube of toothpaste…”  Ha!  I tried.