It is commonplace in the world at large, for women to choose to use their words as weapons against one another. However, we want our girls to grow into young women who honor each other, recognize gossip and avoid it. Many people justify speaking ill of others because, “well, it's the truth, so it’s not gossip.” This is patently untrue. Gossip is defined as any conversation, held in a person’s absence, that makes them appear in a lesser light to the listeners. It is also talking about a person or a situation with someone who is neither part of the problem, nor part of the solution. We always have the choice to have grace to overlook small offenses but we often choose to make them bigger by talking about them. The Bible is pretty clear in Proverbs 17:9: “[a]nyone who overlooks an offense promotes love, but someone who gossips separates close friends.” Gossip kills relationships.
We hope to instill in all of our students the desire and skills to build true community. This starts by valuing relationships and knowing how to protect and sustain them. Relational harmony, as any married couple can corroborate, requires a great deal of care. Cultivating an authentic community requires similar care and a commitment to transparent, and sometimes uncomfortable, conversation; asking for what we need, sharing when we’ve been hurt, admitting our mistakes that have hurt others, and asking forgiveness.
Our staff members model this type of commitment to real relationships through sometimes uncomfortable conversations. I’m entirely blessed to work with people who will come to me and say, “I feel concerned about the way your words affected our co-worker yesterday. I know her feelings were hurt and you need to go make that right.” This way of speaking the truth, in love, paves the way for me to mend a relational tear that I didn’t realize I had made. The opposite action would be for the person who noticed the hurt to go to the wounded one and commiserate about how insensitive I can be. Though they might not be wrong in fact, but would be wrong in heart. Talking about me, rather than to me, would result in relational damage. We must not forget the potential for healing or hurting in the power of our words.
In James chapter three we are told that the tongue is one of those tiny little body parts that can start big fires! This rings true in my personal experience. At times I’ve been too quick to snap at someone when I’m frustrated or give a snarky retort before I even think of the potential consequences. And as I repent and ask God to work in me, I am growing in prudence through the grace of Jesus. I find I’m able to choose my words more carefully and practice greater restraint in giving a slow and thoughtful answer.
Prudence, or making wise and careful choices, is a virtue we value at TRA. We are focusing on cultivating virtue in our own lives and in our students. We strive to build up one another with our words, rather than to tear each other down. We want to graduate young women who know how to create and maintain authentic relationships by refraining from gossip, courageously entering hard conversations, and showing prudence in their words and actions, so they will be lights of God’s love in a world that desperately needs it.
-Tonya Griffith, Principal
