a parable worth hearing and telling.........

There was a little boy with a bad temper.
His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that
every time he lost his temper, to hammer a nail in the back fence.
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence.
Then it gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was
easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.
Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all.
He told his father about it and the father suggested
that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that
he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and
the young boy was finally able to tell his father
that all the nails were gone. The father took his son
by the hand and led him to the fence.

He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes
in the fence. The fence will never be the same.
When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.
You can put a knife in a man and draw it out.
It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry,
the wound is still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one

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