letters (1)

You've Got Mail!

Somewhere in our attic there's a box. You're thinking, "Whoopee! Tell me something fresh, something I don't know about attics." Actually in our over-the-garage, folding-stepladder-entry attic, boxes rule--all sizes including boxes inside of boxes, boxes with legos, boxes of Golden Books ready to rot, boxes of school papers, and boxes of homemade blocks that my dad made for the kids. But this box is different. It's full of letters my husband and I wrote to each other during the dinosaur era of no cell phone, texting, or email, otherwise known as the 70's.


Someday our children will read those letters and smile. "How primitive of Mom and Dad! To communicate from Michigan to Indiana and vice versa via snail mail." But they will read them. They may even save them because in those letters we shared our activities, our thoughts, our hearts.


Now I'm starting to write our 26-year-old daughter and 28-year-old son a letter a week [both live a day's drive from us] because during a frigid January epiphany, I realized they have never in their entire life received a letter from their mother. Just emails, birthday card notes, and texts. They wouldn't have a cigar box full of letters like my grandmother had written my dad in 1942 when he was in Europe fighting the Nazi regime. When he died 68 years later, the letters were still there, a mother's heart shared with her child.


Imagine the apostle Paul twittering the Corinthians about some of their bad habits. "ur driving me nuts with your idols. stop!" Forget 140 characters or less. Instead he spent 500+ words just to tell them how much he cared. Then he wrote what they needed to hear and explained why. He often ended with personal notes. His letters encouraged, explained, and evoked response. The power of a heart-felt letter does that. And they last. Who can you bless with a letter?


Joyce

Check out the following link that encourages parents to write their children meaningful letters:

Letters from Dad
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