Gift of Gab

When I was little, they said I was blessed with the gift of gab. I was also called "gas bags" by the nuns at Cathedral School. (But they loved it in me.) I can remember being told, write it down. I still have a few stories I wrote when I was in elementary school on Peggy's typewriter. (Boy were they embarrassing to the family.)
I just finished reading Rob Bell's book Love Wins and I believe he must be right about the love God has for us. And I remember never being able to feel it because I had to be so good to get it. But Bell says that God is like our Father and he will always love us. Take us back.
That led me to consider how I could make myself more loveable for God and I thought about my terrible mouth. I might have been given the gift of gab by God but I was also given an ability to use those words to cut, to wound, to hurt the ones I love.
That is what I am going to work on improving. I have to learn to stop and not say what I could say, what I've thought up to say just because I could think it up. I'm going to start to be kind. I already did that today and it felt just great. I'm not proud of myself, but I do feel different now that I know what I can and should do.
Help me remember.
After all, maybe it isn't the gabbing, but the meanness that I need to change.