Healing was the word from Silent Unity’s publication: The Daily Word on August 31, 2025. They gave an illustration of a teacher asking her students to draw a portrait of themselves with rays of sunshine and swords coming from their hearts. The sun represents hope and joy, while the swords represent hurt. We can either be beacons of sunshine to others and ourselves providing hope, or we can be daggers of hurt and anger causing harm to ourselves and to others. I don’t know about you, but providing sunshine instead of swords sounds like a better idea.

Too often, we speak without thinking. We may criticize others, cut them down, say things that are plain and simply aren’t nice, kind, or coming from love. Perhaps we’ve had a bad day, or perhaps we’re in physical or emotional pain. Maybe someone has done us wrong! We are discouraged! Whatever is happening in our outer world, we internalize it and then, we with sharp piercing aim the sword directly into another’s heart. Without cause or consideration of what harm we just inflicted.

… Six years back, I had a Seeing Eye dog named Sarge. He was a beautiful golden retriever. He loved, loved, loved his ball and would play with it 24/7 if I’d let him. He also had a high instinct or drive. Though I was learning to work with that tendency, one morning, while walking to church on a sunny day, while crossing a very busy intersection, a woman walked across towards us with her little dog on a twenty-five-foot Flex-a-lead. Her dog attacked mine. I didn’t see how the encounter began-which dog started the fight-nor what was going on in the moment. The growls coming from both animals caused me to be frightened for Sarge’s and my safety. Once the woman disentangled her dog from mine, she just walked to the opposite side of the street. Still standing in the middle of the street and being disoriented after dropping the harness’s handle, I called the woman back and asked if she could guide me to the other side of the street. She did. Then, in tears, she said, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” No, “it’d” never be okay. Knowing dear Sarge would have to be retired for our bond and trust was now broken, I called for a Lyft to take us the remaining mile to church. The driver pressed the wrong button and started to drive in the opposite direction. After straightening him out, I eventually got to church.

As I sat in a prayer room and cried in the arms of the consoling minister, she said, “Some people have no idea of how their actions affect others.” Yep, because of that encounter, Sarge had to be retired after six months of being a Seeing Eye dog, and last I heard, he had changed careers and is now working in a prison in New Jersey sniffing for lithium batteries in prisoners’ contraband cell phones. The woman and her dog unknowingly shot swords into my heart that horrible sunshining morning. Neither of us knew her actions-if pressed-is a Class III misdemeanor.

As I wrote this story, there are so many metaphors:

Sunshine morning full of hope

Intersection-intersections of life

Car going in the wrong direction-we often get turned around in life.

So, how are your words to yourself and others being spread?

Sunshine?

Swords?

The challenge is to spread sunshine even when circumstances are to the contrary. You do not want your words to cause harm and/or inflict pain on another. Be kind! Be compassionate! Those you interact with are someone else’s mother, sister, daughter, father, brother, or son. You have a choice! Be the light, not the dark! Imagine what would happen if each of us sprinkled sunshine instead of swords. Together, we can create a ripple of compassion that reaches further than we’ll ever know. Start with your next conversation, and in sprinkling sunshine over shooting swords, you will change the way you see and change the way you live.