God Uses Sin, Sickness, Suffering, and the Stupid Things People Say.

I know this girl.  Maybe you know someone just like her.  Every time she speaks, flaming arrows shoot out of her mouth.  I am not her only victim.  I have seen her fire her hurtful and cutting words at my friends.  I once told this girl she had hurt her feelings, and her reply was, "No, I didn't."  Well, there's just no conversation possible after that kind of outright denial.  As horrible as this girl is, I am thankful for her.  I think I am a better friend for having known her and been subjected to her awful words.  She is the best example of exactly how I do not want to be.  She's a great example of how to make people literally run away from you.  (Last year, a friend and I-both in our 30s-caught sight of this girl and we ran and hid.  I've never felt so much like a jr. high girl since . . . I was a jr. high girl.)  Being subjected to her highly insensitive remarks has been like taking a sensitivity class.  She has inadvertently taught me in so many ways how to be a friend.  I have learned much through her negative example.  Proverbs 18 has much to say about our words, and about the invisible but very real problem of sadness and broken hearts.  We must always be alert to the unseen sadnesses in the lives of our friends.