What I Have Learned While Playing Words With Friends

You may be familiar with Words With Friends, the online game similar to Scrabble. It not, check it out. It's a really fun game!


I have been playing, and enjoying, Words With Friends for a number of years. Following my stroke, I (obviously!) didn't play for a few months, but eventually I began to play again. It was one of those things I decided to try just to see if I could do it, and I continued playing even when it was really challenging for me because it was "good for me".


Even now, some days are more enjoyable than others. Some days I struggle to make words. Some days, I look at the words in front of me and think "I've got nothin'". (Yes, I know that is bad grammar. But you get the point.) Some days, making even the simplest word from the 7 letters in front of me seems an almost insurmountable task. Many thanks to the friends who continue to play with me. You know you are almost always going to win, don't you?


One of my biggest challenges in this game, and even in normal conversation, is that what my brain thinks it sees is not always what I am actually looking at. It's part of the aphasia as the result of my stroke. Very simply described, aphasia is the inability to comprehend or formulate language based on damage to a specific area of the brain. It's like no longer being able to read or speak in a language you once knew.


At this point in my recovery, most days the aphasia is not a huge issue. But then, there are the other days. The days when I look at cat and see six. When I look at a word like hourglass and read it as headquarters, and don't have any idea that what I saw was not correct. My sweet husband has adjusted very well to conversations that don't make sense. My Words With Friends friends may sometimes be wondering where that word came from! The answer would usually be, I have not idea! It isn't what I thought I was spelling!


What is the point of this rambling on about a game? The point is that I have learned something from this experience. The lesson is this: things are not always what they seem.


The words I speak or read or write are not always what I thought they were.


And that's true in all areas of life. What you see on the internet is not always what you thought it was. What you heard from the politicians or pundits is not always true. Everything that "somebody said" is not true just because they said it.


In this crazy world we are living in, it's important to remember that things are not always what they seem. In politics. In schools. In the mall. Even in the Church.


We live in a world that has lost its moral compass. We live in a world that is looking everywhere for truth except to the Truth.


Don't be deceived. Be sure that you know the Truth.


"and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." (John 8:32 NASB)