Words, spoken at the right moment, can change a life, for good or bad. Even when we don’t acknowledge or are aware of their impact, the effect of our words can be profound.
Maybe it’s because I was a pastor for 37 years that I tend to see underlying messages in seemingly common things.
Like a baby’s first sentence.
She has already verbalized words: my 22-month-old granddaughter, Stella. She is a veritable fountain of chatter.
“Mo water,” “hot,” “cold,” ‘Mommy,” “Daddy,” her dog’s name (“SaySay” for “Sadi”), all her grandparents’ names, even aunts, uncles, and cousins, and of course perhaps the most utilized word: “NO.” The child knows how to verbalize.
But for her PopPop, who has spent a lifetime engaged in words—writing them, speaking them, studying them, meditating on them—her first complete sentence is epic.
I was sitting with my son, David, Jr., enjoying a rare quiet moment on their back porch, Lori and I having arrived earlier to celebrate the birth of newborns, twin girls, then only ten days old.
Stella, our 22-month-old, was entertaining us with giggles and smiles. Then her words were spontaneous, no prompting, no mimicking, no rehearsing. Looking at her daddy (but I think including all), Stella said, with a smile that brightened the room, “I love you.”
“I love you.”
A simple sentence: subject, verb, object.
Don’t underestimate the power of that three-word sentence.
It wasn’t the “love ya” we sometimes use to facilitate a goodbye from a tired phone conversation, at other times used as a hinge on which we hang an uncomfortable exit, or the words we leave floating in the air as we dash out the door.
Stella’s was a complete sentence: “I love you.” She even looked at the object of her sentence as she spoke them.
No, she wasn’t thinking deep thoughts of unconditional love; she’s a 22-month-old who naturally thinks of her own needs.
The point is, she said them, and in her childlike way, she meant them. Her first sentence didn’t begin with “I want,” “I need,” or “You should.” I’m sure those will come later the more she listens to us adults.
She said, “I love you.”
Those three words said with meaning at the right time, have the power to change a life.
Spoken at a restaurant, maybe in a candlelit corner, with two people uncertain about their relationship, “I love you” can establish security.
When the prodigal child returns home, and the parent, with tear-filled eyes, says those words, it can mean a new beginning.
When spoken in what we refer to as “tough love,” as when one finally walks away from an abusive relationship where “love” has descended into a manipulative game of thorns, they can signify a new life for one and the end for another.
Those three words can become meaningless; unfilled promises can eventually trample another’s hopes, for love is an act of the will as much as the heart. Jesus’ life teaches us that love is more than a warm feeling. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13), he told his disciples before his death. He was saying, “I love you,” with his life.
I don’t know what little Stella thought in her 22-month-old mind when she said, “I love you.” All I know is that she said them. All I can do is relish that moment, praying that her words will be a prophetic overture for her life, even as I am fearful for the vulnerability they carry with them yet hopeful for the joy they can bring.
For now, I let them sink in, basking in the sunshine those three words bring to my soul.
You can contact Dr. David Whitlock at drdavid@davidwhitlock.org