by Joanne Wiklund
My Momma Was Right: Just Ask Dr. Ben Carson
I quote my Mom so often I sound like Forrest Gump. So many things she told us or made us do I hear in my own conversations or in words from others. When it rained and we complained about having to walk to school in the rain, she handed us our lunches in brown paper bags and said, You’re not sugar, you won’t melt. Always with a smile. She had to smile. With five children and a disabled husband, if she didn’t smile, she’d be crying all the time. She told us that and laughed.
If we complained about black spots of pepper in our mashed potatoes she bought white pepper. She made us pile our shoes on the closed in back porch instead of leaving them where we took them off. She read books to us when we were little, and when we grew older, she never bothered us if we had our noses buried in a book.
Language was important to her, and she peppered her speech with important phrases she wanted us to remember. Sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you. I disagreed with that one because I know from experience words can really hurt. When I asked her about it, she said the rest of that line was…If you let them. A favorite line was: If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all!
Imagine my surprise when Dr. Ben Carson stole her line. When asked to answer a question about unity and if the speakers would change their tones, he stopped talking briefly. He started to say something then stopped before he said what he was thinking. He shook his head and said, “Well, I … Oh no, I guess I can just say if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.”
Joshua 1:7-8 “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. 8. draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you…”
Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest.”
Joshua 1:10 “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”