I recently had an experience where I was careless with my words. The result was that the person I was speaking to was left hurt and misunderstood. I spoke out of frustration and in my frustration I became careless. I have noticed in myself as well as in others that when we as people become frustrated with situations or people we often become careless with our words.
I have heard it said in these situations that, “I was just being honest”, or “I was just telling the truth”. That may be so; and I do commend being honest in our speech as well as in the acknowledgment of our feelings. Just because something may be honest or true does not relieve us of the responsibility of how we communicate that truth. If we are careless and leave a wake of destruction then the truth is meaningless.
If we do our best to communicate truth in a helpful way and the other person is still hurt or offended it does not mean that we have done wrong. I believe that we can agree that the truth sometimes does hurt. I believe our part in speaking the truth is for the hearer of the truth to understand that by us speaking the truth we are not attacking, or, being mean just for the sake of being mean. I believe that there is a happy medium in “speaking the truth in love”. If the other knows/believes that we have their best interest at heart speaking the truth will be less hurtful and more helpful.