Landmarks or Land Mines?

Heard this on the radio the other day. "There will be things in our lives that will form the landmark which will affect us forever. What we do and what we went through will be the very core of it. However, the question is, are those our landmarks or land mines?"


"What you (parents,friends, family, etc) do will pose as a huge part of their lives. You either break them or make them." Suddenly it occured to me that human beings are having too much power in them. Imagine to have the power to influence someone so greatly that you can make or break them. It's like holding someone's life in your hands. One word.. all it takes is just one word and that person maybe cast from the highest point to the lowest pit of the earth.


I remember there is a song we used to sing in children church, "Don't say something that isn't nice,better listen to this advice... you can really hurt someone, so keep your lips together and SHHH!!!" We used to think it's funny singing this song and doing it accompanied with actions.


But think about it. How much words can really hurt.. I remember another time where I ran home crying because of what all my friends said. I was 13.. taller than most of them, but nothing could stop me from crying. That is a land mine now. A piece of land that blew up long ago.. and the hole it left behind never did disappear.


There's just countless cases of people being affected out there. Some are so mentally scared. I know a guy, people said he was a real gem and a loveable boy. Until his father changed that. He became a drug addict.. now? He's in rehab, fighting for his life to change, to change what he became all because of his father's carelessness. Just because of that careless sentence, "Your a piece of useless garbage! Your better out on the street like those drug addicts!" You must be wondering why his father said that.. The father came home from a rough day of work and he came home to a bad report card. It slipped.. just like that. Scary isn't it?


Sensitive.. we're all humans after all. We can be really frail creatures. It takes less than a punch to break us sometimes and when some words just hits the weak point.. we fall, we break, it becomes our land mine. It makes us grow when we brace through such 'storms', true. Going through it makes us tougher and sometimes, it takes a fall and a break to make us learn but sometimes.. how sure are we that the person we break can really ever recover? How sure that the break will make them grow stronger? or will it just make them fall from unimaginable heights?


Cautious.. be all so very cautious of how we affect the lives of others. Don't create more land mines, instead make it a landmark. God didn't give us a mouth to harm. :)