Dale was paralyzed from the neck down and spent his last days in an electric wheelchair. He suffered from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), a cruel neurological disease eventually rendering him a prisoner in his own body. Dale was in his late forties, tall; thin, with long black hair and beard. He looked like a mountain man and in many ways was. His typical attire was bibbed overalls and a T-shirt.

Dale served in the Army Airborne Division with two hitches in Vietnam. He and his wife Marsha were both adventurous. They lived with natives in South America for a time, traveling there on their own, with no connection with any organized group. Dale had been the president of the “Hell’s Angel’s” in Northern Ohio and moved to Southern Ohio to “start a new life”; or possibly to escape the old one. Shortly after his move Dale surrendered his life to God, but he remained untamed. When I asked Dale what death meant to him he grinned and replied, “It’s just the next big adventure.”

Dale, Marsha and their fifteen-year-old daughter, Tiffany, lived on a small farm situated on one of the highest ridges in Scioto County, Ohio. They gardened, planted orchards, canned, tended livestock, butchered, logged, and heated with wood. Dale was a very intelligent and gifted man. His wife, Marsha, bragged, “Dale can do anything. He can play any musical instrument by ear and he’s a chef.”

I spent one afternoon a week alone with Dale to give Marsha desperately needed breaks. Because of Dale’s disease, conversation was difficult but possible. Dale and I talked about sports, Bible prophecy, the book he was writing, and his life experiences. Then one day, out of the blue, Dale declared, “I feel powerless. I can’t do anything. I’m not a man. I can’t do anything for my family”. Tears streamed down his face which he couldn’t even wipe away; so I wiped them away for him.

What do you say? What can you say? For an instant I became too sympathetic to be of any good. I thought, “I’d feel the same way. Who wouldn’t?” I admitted to Dale, “Sometimes I question how much good I’m doing for you”; and Dale sighed, “Just to say it!” Dale’s response reminds me of some lines from the book, “The Listening Ear”, by Paul Tournier; “There are some emotions pent up and unexpressed which block the flow of life…The feeling that he is understood is what helps him to live, to face any problem, however difficult, without being false to himself. It is a moment of truth…” Dale’s right, there is something about just saying it, isn’t there?

As we sat silently, I pondered, “What’s the most powerful thing in the world?” So I asked Dale; he thought for a moment and replied “I don’t know.” I suggested, “I think that our words are the most powerful thing in the world. Our words can build people up or tear them down; they can inspire or discourage.” At the risk of minimizing his struggle, I suggested that there was still much that Dale could do for his family.

It’s typical and understandable for us to question our worth and to feel powerless when our physical abilities wane. After all, most of us base our worth on what we can physically do; and we underestimate the power and significance of our words, how we make other’s feel. But consider the significance that God ascribes to our words: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” (Proverbs 25:11); “A word fitly spoken is like apples of Gold in pictures of silver.”(Proverbs18:21); “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.(Ephesians 4: 29); “But I say unto you, that every idle word that man shall speak, they shall give account in the day of judgment. For by your words, you shall be justified and by your words you will be condemned. (Matt 12:37) No wonder King David prayed “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips,” (Ps 141:3).

Loren Hardin was a social worker with SOMC-Hospice for 29 years. He can be reached at 740-357-6091 or at lorenhardin53@gmail.com. You can order Loren’s book, “Straight Paths: Insights for living from those who have finished the course” at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.