“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.”—Hebrews 12:11

I’ll never forget the day I got a knock in the teeth from my mother—verbally, that is. It happened during a long-distance phone conversation. I had interrupted her three times. She snapped, “Will you be quiet! You know, your brother couldn’t slide a word in the last time you called him. He said to me, ‘Carol is so rude. She never lets anyone else talk.’”

Ooh, that smarted. Hanging up in a daze, I thought, I’m not like that…am I? I took a closer look. Wasn’t I nicknamed “Mighty Mouth” in junior high? Didn’t my high school English teacher often quote “Silence is golden” to me?

My mother and brother were right. I was cruising through conversations even on a red light. It was time someone stopped me. I reached for the phone to make a couple of thank-you calls.

Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift. Ephesians 4:29 (MSG)

I could feel my sarcasm twitching to pounce. The perfect retort was on the tip of my tongue, ready to launch at the arrogant person who deserved to be put in his place. I certainly wasn’t at fault here, and he needed to know how wrong he was.

Fortunately Jesus’ Spirit caught me before I ruined a perfectly good opportunity to act wisely and zip my lip. I love wit; wit is fun. But there’s a fine line between wit and sarcasm, and is there anything positive that comes from sarcasm? I’m pretty sure not.

Wit is the innocent form of sarcasm, but too often the two meld together and true biting sarcasm develops and begins to cut. Even the word itself sounds on edge: “sar-chasm,” like a foxhole it digs between people. Sarcasm is a divider of hearts, and what every person on God’s green earth needs instead are words that unify, words that gather up frayed ends.

Jesus used plenty of wit as He taught and loved and drew others to truth, but He did not dilute His impact by resorting to sarcasm. I looked up Ephesians 4:29 in several translations. The Message version clarifies the difference between jolly-good wit and more subversive sarcasm.

If each word is a gift, what are we offering someone (or ourselves) with the things we say? Who knows what wrath or arrogance or other destructive trait can be redeemed by the gift of a life-giving word?

Faith Step: Pray over 1 Peter 3:8–9 (MSG). “Be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless–that’s your job–to bless. You’ll be a blessing and also get a blessing.”

READ MORE: HOW TO START EACH DAY SPIRITUALLY STRONG

I stopped in a sandwich shop called Flat Breads outside Boston at 9 a.m. to pick up lunch for my daughter and me for our bus ride back to New York. The owner, a cheerful man, noted we were traveling and asked where we were from. When I told him he said, “Ah, that’s where I’m from!”

“What are you doing here?” I joked.

“Long story,” he replied, then told me the short version. It involved the near-fatal car accident of the oldest of his six kids, many years of surgeries and rehab for the boy, and later diagnoses of cancer of his youngest daughter and his wife. He concluded by saying, “I’d like to be able to look in the rear-view mirror on all that, but since I can’t, I count my blessings.” He smiled a genuine smile.

I nodded, said something like, “That’s a lot to deal with!” and told him the three-sentence version of my family’s difficulties. His eyes softened. “You can only play the hand you’re dealt,” he said, kindly, “And it sounds like you’re doing the best you can. God bless you.”

I left the shop and told my daughter — the one who spent five months in psychiatric institutions this year, and who had tagged along to Boston so she could see her sister who is in residential treatment for anorexia — about the conversation.

“You can only play the hand you’re dealt,” she mused aloud, “Someone else said that to me last week while we were playing cribbage.”

It’s true, of course. If you spend your energy focused on wishing you had a different hand, you’re not fully in the game. It makes more sense to count the blessings you have, and to put your effort into doing what you can.