Words are powerful. They get stuck in our minds, lodged in our hearts, roll around in our heads, heal our souls. We sing them, we speak them, we write them, we think them. Proverbs says, the power of life and death is in the tongue. James says, the tongue is the smallest member of the body but has the most power. Words are eternal.

Words also change over time, phrases take on new meanings, so when we hear something we assume it means what we have learned it to mean. However, when God speaks, if we assume we know what He is talking about we may miss what He is saying.

The Lord spoke to me the other day the word forgive and said, “Forgiveness is pouring salt in a wound.” I said to the Lord, pouring salt in a wound is adding insult to injury, then the Holy Spirit said, “Not originally, look it up.” So I did and what I found made total sense why the Lord said, “Forgiveness is pouring salt in a wound.”

Originally, before medication was so readily available, they would pour salt in a wound, for salt acted as an anticeptic, anti-bacterial, anti-viral medicinal agent. Pouring salt in a wound actually healed the wound. How we went from pouring salt in a wound as a medicinal act, to it adding insult to injury I am not sure. But what I do know, is that when we forgive someone we are actually pouring salt in their wound and healing them.

We hurt people out of our own woundedness, so when we forgive people we pour salt in their wound and it heals them. Makes me wonder if this why Jesus said in Matthew 5 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” We are called to be ones who forgive others by pouring salt in their wound for their healing.