Words have a very long shelf life. The words we hear affect how we view the circumstances, and ourselves. The Bible says the words have the power to bring life or to bring death. And many of us are replaying words spoken to us, or about us, in an endless loop.

Many of the stories we believe about ourselves started out as nothing more than words from someone close to us. Statements like “Why can’t you be more like your sister” or “I always knew you’d amount to nothing” can resonate like a gunshot for decades. Words hurt.

There’s a two-pronged attack to getting past the hurtful or negative words we’ve heard, and to rewriting a bad story. The first thing we have to do is forgive them, no matter what they said or did. Unforgiveness kills us. It stops our forward momentum dead. We have to let it go.

And the second thing? We have to replace the lie with the Truth. We must rewrite the story, not only for ourselves, but for the generations after us.