Wordle of the Day: Ouch!

I’ve wasted far too much time over at Wordle. For people in love with words, it’s a gripping addiction! Wendell Berry poems look great as wordles. So do e e cummings poems. So do Bible verses. So do… well, enough said.

But as I was playing around I also thought of this: out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

What’s in my heart?

Here’s my blog. Wordle scans the text, and the words you use most are the largest; the ones you use least, the smallest:

Isn’t that lovely? I’m apparently quite the God-talker. How symbolic this summary is, with all the other mish-mash of my cyber rambling perched on the back of the Almighty, the foundation and source of all that really matters to me.

That’s true. BUT.

The test of faith is how much I love others. I thought about a few relationships in my life. Here’s a wordle of how I talk to my children; I typed in the first few sentences in our normal dialogue that came to mind, estimating about how many times I would say them in a day:

They hear “I love you” less often than “I’m setting the timer.” (I usually set it for 10 minutes when it’s time to clean up the play room, or in the morning when they’re making beds and getting dressed.) And though I read them a Bible story each morning, and pray with them, it’s a once-a-day thing. It doesn’t really even show up on the wordlar.

I have high aspirations as a parent. I love my children more than I knew was possible before they entered the scene. I pray for them. Occasionally I read inspiring parenting books. I’m full of ideas and opinions. But I need to “use my words” more to get it across to the ones who matter most.

I think I knew that… But something about seeing this visual representation makes it even more clear to me.