Anyone who has met me knows that I’m often painfully precise. My husband often comments how this tendency has shown up in our marriage and our parenting and now my kids often hold our feet to the fire on the words that come out of our mouths. My parents got me a shirt for my birthday this past December that says “I’m silently correcting your grammar,” and people are probably happy that my corrections tend to be silent.

Suffice it to say, language is REALLY important to me. And that started before my diagnosis in 2017 with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC).

And it’s only gotten worse.

Recently, two things happened that vividly reminded me just how important language choices are and how the words we use in the context of suffering can either harm or heal; not much middle ground available. Please note that this post isn’t about…