Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones (Proverbs 16:24).

A three-letter text message, "thx" doesn't do it; but a simple and sincere three-sentence e-mail might.  A rambling three-hour conversation full of compliments, critiques, questions, complaints, and all other kinds of communication may or may not do it; but a three-minute pulled-aside conversation -- "Hey, can we talk for a couple of minutes" -- with lots of direct eye contact and specifically-targeted affirmation works wonders nearly every time.  Do you know what I'm talking about?

I'm talking about pleasant words.  Words of affirmation.  Encouragement.  Not mixed in with other stuff as some kind of conversational ballast or used as a build-up to scoring some favor.  Not off-handed filler comments.  I'm talking about intentional, direct, and sincere words that are pleasant, kind, affirming, and encouraging.  I love these kinds of words.  Honeycomb words -- sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.  These kinds of words don't happen nearly often enough in our world today; at times, weeks or months can pass between such occurences... But when it happens, it produces one of the best feelings in the whole world:  unashamed, unadulterated encouragement.  I can't exactly explain or quantify -- but I hope and trust that you know, and have experienced, what I mean.

There's only one problem with these pleasant words -- these delectable pieces of lexical honeycomb.  The only real problem... is that I never know exactly how to respond to them.  "Thank you," of course, is an excellent starting point, yet it never feels quite adequate.  Responding back with reciprocal honeycomb can often feel contrived and perfunctory (though it's still not a bad idea).  Surely, there must be some other way... And that's where it seems to me that this Proverb can be especially beautiful.  Wouldn't it be cool to memorize this Proverb (it's a very short and memorable one), and then when confronted with the gift of pleasant words be able to respond with a simple and sincere statement along the lines of, "You know, there's a Proverb in the Bible that says, 'Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.'  And you just demonstrated that for me beautifully.  My soul is sweeter and my bones are stronger.  Thanks for taking the time to encourage me."  Of course, there would have to be some variance in the wording over time to make sure that it wouldn't become white noise -- but to me, such a Proverb spoken in such a situation seems very fitting, appropriate.  And sweet.