I wanted to get a post in before we head off for the Memorial Day holiday. We will be camping at Victoria Bryant State Park for the weekend and I am sooooo excited and ready–ready for a rest and ready to spend some time with the book of Hebrews. God has been calling me to an in-depth study of the book of Hebrews for months now and so I go this weekend armed with my laptop, multiple translations of the Word, Strong’s Concordance and 3 commentaries.

Originally I planned to complete this study over the summer, focusing on one chapter per week. Ha, the best laid plans of mice and blonde-at-the-roots women! One of my commentaries is the Word Biblical Commentary. Good heavens, it is majorly indepth and uses words I’ve never heard of. So, I may still be working on this study when Christmas rolls around. I digress. That is not why I started this post.

I was in our local Ingles this morning shopping in preparation for the camping trip. I walked into the produce section and overheard (how could you not hear??!!) a very rude late 50′s or early 60′s lady giving the man who was working in the produce department, Ernie, all manner of grief because our Ingles does not have cored whole pineapples! Mind you they have whole pineapples but not cored pineapples! She didn’t just express her displeasure and move on. NO!!! She went on and on and on at this poor man. I just stood there and stared at her. It was all I could do not to march up to her and say, “If you need cored pineapple that badly, go back to wherever you came from and leave Ernie alone.” I wanted to punch her, but I managed not to.

Ernie always works very hard to keep the produce section looking nice and well stocked and here was this bag of wind—er, oops, lady just decimating him verbally. You could tell that it took everything he had to remain calm and apologize to her, yet he handled it admirably.

After she moved on, I walked over to Ernie and said, “You do a great job here and I appreciate you. Don’t let someone like that get to you!” He thanked me and I moved on. I got to the checkout counter and overheard the lady working at the checkout stand talking to Ernie about how she had been the target of this lady’s ire also. I found the co-manager of the store and bragged on Ernie’s handling of the situation and found that he, too, had been hit by Miss Cored Pineapple’s wrath. She just left a path of ‘pineapple’ destruction as she went!

Ernie walked back up to me before I left and thanked me for encouraging him. He said that he was really feeling down and very angry until I took the time to speak a word to him. I reminded him that some of us do try to treat people the way Jesus would treat them. He just smiled a big ole smile and thanked me again.

Good grief, I felt like finding Miss Pineapple and speaking Psalm 58: 6 over her. It says, “Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth; break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Lord.” I figured if King David could ask for that, then so could I. I did manage to restrain myself, however and decided to just pray for her. Obviously she hasn’t experienced much in the way of grace or mercy lately.

Our words have power, friends, power that can build up or destroy. As we walk through this life we have got to learn to choose our words wisely and make wise decisions regarding which hill to die on. I’m pretty sure the ‘cored pineapple hill’ is not the one to die on!! I believe that we will be held accountable for every word we utter in this life. I so want my words to be ones that are pleasing to Jesus!!