For a while I resisted text messaging. I didn’t like missing dear faces and no longer hearing voices that made my heart skip a beat. I considered it impersonal and leaving a lot to be desired. When our youngest son was stricken with stage 4 cancer, loving communication became more critical. So I yielded … and found texting to be quite helpful. If he wanted to talk or needed our help, he would simply respond with a brief message…and oftentimes a return call. How I would love to hear that sweet voice one more time.

Psalm 19:14a: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable…” Words became treasures between us ~ even more so than ever. The pulse rate of the heart was imperative! Moments shared together became golden. They now rest in the memory bank.

While this technology was helping out in many ways, I still needed hugs, I needed to see his endearing face, and I needed to hear his voice, and those of many others I love so dearly. Proverbs 25:1l reads: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” In the texting world ~ especially at a time of crisis ~ we trust our words to be ‘fitly spoken’?

I noticed that other relationships that used to be centered on visits or phone calls sadly resorted to ‘texting only.’ Our words are a reflection of what is in our hearts. How sad it is when our expressed love becomes so fragmented that we relate only in limited letters on a screen. This lacks a pulse rate. Is our communication becoming like television’s rapid, brief commercials in the midst of the program of life?

On the other hand, some relationships have remained connected because texting is quick and efficient in the midst of hectic schedules. Where would some relationships be without texting to make even a slim connector ~ a thread that crosses from one spider-webbed side of life to another?

Like others, I’ve questioned what was typed on a text message. Facing two selections: “Is this, or is it not, offensive?” I came to the conclusion that not only can you NOT read a motive in someone’s mind, you have less chance of realizing a heart’s intent on text messages.

Texting is meant only as a supplement to real face-to-face connections and words fitly spoken. Fireside chats, visits over coffee, sit-down dinners, heart-to-heart talks, and several other forms of times together remain what is real communication. That registers the true pulse from the source of the heart.