Our Family’s Tongue Affliction

Sno Cone Tongue by lilgoldwmn at www.sxc.hu

Sno Cone Tongue by lilgoldwmn at www.sxc.hu

This week our family has had a problem with our tongues.  We are finally feeling better, but it has gone through all six of us.  It was weird and something we had never experienced before.  We think it was a virus, maybe a version of hand, foot, and mouth.  We think it began with Caleb (our 11 month old) over 2 weeks ago, but we thought he was just teething.  He was irritable and couldn’t sleep.  Then it went to Landon (4 years) and had some minor cold symptoms too.  Amanda, my wife, got a sore throat and had it for 10 days.  I got it for over a week and Austin (8 years) and Brooke (6 years) also had it for this whole past week.

What was it?  We are not sure.  But it caused our tongues to be very sensitive and just hurt!  From the tip through the first quarter of our tongues just felt like it was burnt in super hot chocolate or coffee.  Mine also moved to under my tongue and often felt like pins pricking it.  We didn’t run a fever and had few other symptoms.

We thought it might be connected with eating too many fresh tomatoes.  So we stopped eating them.  We couldn’t fully decide if foods affected it or not.

We were all able to carry on with our normal activities.  Cold did give relief, so we ate ice, popsicles, and sent the kids to bed with a blue ice pack to give some relief.

Why am I posting this, you might ask?  Two reasons:

1.  There may be other friends or people searching on the internet for a similar malady and thinking they are crazy like we did.  If they read this, maybe it will help them know that something is going around that attacks your tongue.  We can call it–burned tongue virus!

2.  When we were talking about it, Amanda said it reminded her of how the Bible speaks of our tongues.  James said in 3:5, “So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.”  James says the “tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire by hell.” (3:6).  We don’t normally think that much about our tongues.  But if it hurts all week, let us tell you, that you will think about it a lot.  This is one of James’ points.  We need to consider the impact of this little member more!  Though small, it has a great impact upon our lives.  If our family thought about our words as much every week as we did our physical tongues this week, we would be kinder, wiser, more grateful, more encouraging, and more holy.  

I will end with this question:

What if God made our tongues physically hurt every time we missed used them, how would our speech be different?  

“The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.””  (Matthew 12:35–37 ESV)

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