I love listening to Professor Wanjala field questions on children’s health on one of Kenya’s Christian radio stations. Without doubt, the good professor is very knowledgeable and well-versed in pediatrics. But it’s the employment of grace, decency and gentleness in his delivery that is sheer music to my ears.

As a child, I was just as mindful of my language. I had been taught to choose my words with care, to utter truth, to be kind, and to hold my peace if I had nothing nice to say. Somewhere along the way, I drifted away—consciously. Maybe it all started when, as a 13-year-old, an urgent query to a classmate exposed me to the most offensive in-your-face answer I had ever dealt with: “I don’t care!” I found it hard to believe that one could choose not to care and I collapsed in tears.

Soon, it dawned on me that the world loves my classmate’s way of talking. And so I started to adapt. After a little while, I too could hold my own against the meanest of them all, spewing vulgarity and profanities with an ease that frightens me to this day.

I have of late determined to refine my language, to “let everything [I] say be good and helpful, so that [my] words will be an encouragement to those who hear them” (Ephesians 4:29). “Proud and arrogant lips that accuse the godly” (Psalm 31:18), “foolish boasting” (2 Peter 2:18), and “constant lying” (Proverbs 6:12) sway me no more. Instead, I am earnestly geared to “[bring] every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5 NKJV).   —submitted by Willie, Kenya