No unwholesome talk

In Ephesians 4:29, Paul writes:
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths...

This little verse is quite a challenge to me. I used it for one of the sermons I had to write for VLI, and so of course I felt repeatedly convicted. My temptation at home and with my friends is to be sarcastic, and my temptation at work is to be negative and defensive. I'm always afraid that I'm being a bad example of a Christian.

So I was interested by something that happened at work today. T, my new boss, was frustrated at not finding one of the developers we were looking for, and he said "shoot", or "darn" or something like that, and then turned to me and said "you know, I try to clean up my language when I'm around you". So here I was worrying that it would look bad that I sound pessimistic, and all the time what people were noticing is that I (usually) don't curse.

And then I realized that a former boss had also had the same reaction, and had announced one day that he wasn't going to curse in front of me any more. The man really struggled, but I have to give him credit for a valiant effort. Occasionally, when he just couldn't stand it, he would warn me first -- "Ann, cover your ears!"

What's funny about all this is that I've never asked any of these guys to stop cursing. They just decide on their own that it's not appropriate.

But my next personal discipline will be to stop taking the name of the Lord in vain. I never realized until recently that I was doing this, and I'm not even aware of it, so I'm not sure how I will stop. So I will use my former boss as an example, because if he was able to change his habits, so can I.