This summer, we had a special worship service outside. As part of that service, we read a beautiful children’s book called The Word Collector by Sonja Wimmer. It’s the story of a little girl who collects words. One day, she realizes that all the fun, beautiful words in the world have disappeared. So she packs up all the words that she has collected and heads out into the world. She encounters pain and conflict, mean words and ugly words and hard words. So The Word Collector starts scattering all the words she’s collected into the world again … and her words begins to change things. When she suddenly discovers that her words are all gone, at first, she is disappointed. Then she looks out into the world again and realizes that the people have started sharing her words and making up their own fun, beautiful words again. 

It’s truly a beautiful story. After we read it, we talked about all the places we find ugly words in the world and all the ways we can find to spread beautiful words instead. To help with this, we had a visual representation. I made a board covered in 3×5″ notecards. Each notecard had an ugly, divisive, hard word on it. 

The words we used were:

• Neglect
• Distress
• Distrust
• Conflict
• Blame
• Fear
• Hararss
• Contention
• Torture
• Accuse
• Agony
• Rage
• Saddness
• Hurt
• Fighting
• Lie
• Despair
• Abuse
• Fake
• Worry
• Destroy
• Evil
• Prejudice
• Threat
• Anxiety
• Malice
• Slavery
• Ignore
• Exclude
• Assume
• Hate
• Racism
• Grief
• Attack
• Suspicion
• Scorn
• Abandon
• Trouble
• Corrupt
• Violence
• Supremacy
• Anger
• Shame
• Pain
• Isolation
• Sin
• Intimidation
• Steal
• War
• Lonely
• Bully
• Disrespect
• Argue
• Riot
• Suffering
• Beating
• Force
• Divisive
• Killing
• Loss
• Indifference
• Estranged
• Offensive

That’s a lot of ugly words. So during our prayer time, we used new notecards to write our own fun, beautiful words to cover up all the ugly words on the board. 

Our fun, beautiful words were:

• Happiness
• Children
• PB & J
• Listen
• Justice
• Appreciate
• Hug
• Happy
• Magnificent
• Wait
• Accept
• Companionship
• Soaring
• Sweet
• Celebrate
• Joy
• Truth
• Confidence
• Easter
• Support
• Mom’s Banana Bread
• Babies
• Chocolate
• Fantastic
• Strength
• Grandchildren
• Peace
• Pleasing
• Gracious
• Tolerance
• Respect
• Accept
• Croissant
• Compassion
• Hope
• Love All
• Family
• Believe
• Sweetness
• Asparagus
• Love
• Honesty
• Trust
• Gratitude
• Faith
• Spiffy
• Puppies
• Thank You
• Creativity
• Blessed
• Goodness
• Patience
• Gracious
• Christmas
• Faith
• Forgive
• Thanks
• Respect
• Jiggy
• Hope
• Kindness
• Hugs
• Humility
• Family
• Day Brightener
• Freedom
• Appreciate
• Favor
• Prayer

Yes, I know some of those are repeats. But that’s okay. That makes it even more beautiful. Also, if you compared the lists, you’d notice that we ended up with more beautiful words than we did ugly words … which I also find beautiful. Our beautiful words were overflowing the board, covering all the ugly words and more. Hallelujah! Amen.