Special Delivery

Letters... remember those?

No. Not your abc's...

The kind that came on paper in an envelope through the mail. The kind you got excited about, that made you smile just seeing it there among the ads and bills and various other junk.

I love letters. I miss letters. I love reading and writing them. They don't even have to be letters to me and I enjoy them. I have a book series called Griffin and Sabine, which I absolutely love. I don't even understand it really - I just love that it's letters written back and forth between two people. Letters contain just that extra piece of the person that email just can't convey. You can hold it and feel it, see the handwriting... the slower deliberate strokes of thought or the hurried unfinishedness of excitement. It holds time, creates a moment. A letter speaks of love - extra time taken to sit and think and feel - to remind you that you are worth that effort. Yes - a letter is extra special.

I took the time to write a letter the other day. It's been a while, but there was a time I wrote someone every couple weeks. It felt like rediscovering an old friend. Pen to paper... thoughts pouring out...wanting to finish and get it in the mail. Then the wait till it is delivered. Oh joy! The need for this letter ensued from a friend having very limited computer access. Not knowing when she would be able to read email, I was just having conversation with her in my head. So instead I decided to write down those conversations so she could have the benefit of experiencing it as well.

We've become so hurried, so robotic these days... so much so that many of us have forgotten how to communicate with each other the substance of our hearts. It's a 'hey how are you' - and we're out the door before we even get to the end of the sentence. The answer expected is always 'Fine and how are you?' If it's not - we don't know how to respond. We've got some place to be, too many things to do. Many of us are even too busy to say hi at the beginning of the forwards we send round and round. We are missing something...

... called human connection


Maybe you don't have time to meet for coffee (or a diet coke). Can you find a few minutes to write a letter to let someone know you are thinking of him or her? Maybe write a letter of encouragement for your children that they can look back on in years to come. Or to a friend you haven't been able to connect with in a while. Take some time and write a letter to a soldier who is far from home and fighting so you can sleep peacefully at night or a prisoner who might feel like God has abandoned him. You can always send one to me! I am challenging each of us to hand write a letter sometime in the next 30 days. Will you accept the challenge?

Yes - a letter is extra special

Even God knew letters were important. He wrote one for all of us - from His heart! Will you write one?