Hey everyone. It's Leslie Ludi, host of the Set-A-Part-Girl Podcast,

biblical encouragement for women of all ages.

Today we're going to be talking about having

a guarded tongue and the power of choosing our words wisely.

James 3.2 has such poignant words for us to consider.

If anyone does not stumble in what he says,

he is a perfect man able to bridle the whole body as well.

And then in Proverbs 18-2, it says that life and death are in the power of the tongue.

So obviously, this is not an area of our lives that we are to take lightly.

If life and death are in the power of the tongue, then every word spoken

needs to be weighed in light of our relationship with Christ. I have a story that I'd like to

share with you that happened to me in third grade. I had just moved to a new school and

I didn't really know a lot of kids and through that year I slowly

gained popularity I was very outgoing and my goal was to make as many friends as

possible and so about halfway through the year I had finally become accepted by most kids in my third grade

class.

And there was a girl in my class who was never really accepted by anyone. Her name was Marcy and she was just sort of an

outcast. She was socially awkward and shy and insecure. People were always coming up to me. and her and I never really knew how to respond in those situations.

I didn't want to lose my friends by standing up for her and yet I knew that gossip was wrong.

I came home from school one day and told my mom what was going on and she was very strongly

exhorting me not to engage in gossip in any way, including not to even listen to gossip.

And she gave me a few scriptures that really

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