Thankful Thursday - Words

I am thankful for words. I don't care if it's a written word or a spoken words - as long as it's a good word and not taking the LORD's name in vain, or talking disrespectfully of where we'll spend eternity.

I love words. You see, without words, we'd be stupid, we'd be just like animals. Without words, we can't communicate higher thoughts, we can't reason. We might, as some animals can, be able to communicate, "Snake! Snake! Snake! Run!" But we wouldn't be able to talk about what we had for dinner the night before, how our lives are going, comfort each other when we're having a hard time. We wouldn't be able to pray.

I am thankful that, when God put Adam into the garden, Adam already had a complete vocabulary - and it was probably far more complete than anyone's today. I am thankful that it was so complete, so advanced, that he could name all of the animals in one afternoon.

In The Magician's Nephew, by C.S. Lewis, Aslan, the great Lion, who was a personification of Jesus, gave speech to some of the animals. One of these animals happened to be Strawberry, a cabby horse that had fallen into Narnia with a group of humans, including the cabby driver. When asked what his life was like before he had received words, he said that it was all a hazy blur, that he hadn't been truly aware of anything.

If we didn't have words, I believe we would be like that. We wouldn't be truly aware - and definitely not self-aware. But as it is, we DO have words, and nothing, apart from the power of God, can take these words away from us. Even deaf children, who have never heard a spoken word, will develop some sort of sign language - even if they themselves had never been exposed to any other sort of sign language.

And so, I am thankful for words - I am thankful that God loved us enough to give them to us.