I am blessed to teach at a Christian School. Three days a week we walk what we talk to our students about by getting together, touching base, reading a bit of scripture, praying for one another, and learning more about how we can each best do this thing called life together. We have each others' backs. This morning in staff devotions we covered the first bit of Romans 16, which opens with a long list of personal greetings that Paul is asking to be sent on his behalf while he himself is far away from home and loved ones. We were asked to consider the importance of personal greetings.
I immediately traveled in my mind to the drawer at home and the file (bursting!) at school where I keep such treasures. The Mother's Day cards, anniversary cards, letters, and notes that so many have taken the time to send me all came to mind. I'm not a hoarder, really I'm not, but you can count on me saving a letter, note, card, or sticky note that someone took the time to write on just for me.
I traveled back in time some 14 years ago to my precious years at Brown Elementary where one Rob Spicer would frequently leave "Just a Note" on a bulletin board display my students and I had labored over.
In my mind I walked my short gravel drive to my mailbox, where many a day, just when I needed it the most, I would find a note, letter, or card from the great state of Kansas where letter writer Extraordinaire Aunt AnaMarie Slack is, as I type, still waiting patiently for this year's Christmas letter! (It's coming, I promise!) Or perhaps the postman left a card that day from Jaci or Kelly or Miss Melody or Annie or Renee or Meredith or my brother or one of my sisters.
I immediately traveled back to a few years ago now when that same trip to the mailbox would produce a letter that had traveled all the long way across the ocean from Africa, where my Peace Corps volunteering niece Jessica was serving.
I jumped back to each and every October in recent memory where this time the mailbox greeted me with the latest installment in the "Who Can Make The Other One Cry With Their Birthday Card Selection" contest that My Ol' Man and I have been having. (This last October I declared him the winner for once and for all...dang, that man can pick 'em!)
And, yes, I visited that "Rainy Day" file I have at school where I keep those notes and cards from students and parents. You know, the ones you read on the days when you question not only your decision to teach, but your very existence on the planet. The ones that tell you maybe you don't stink at what you do after all and maybe you should give it one more try before you consider actually handing in that resignation letter.
Okay, maybe I am a bit of a hoarder, but today I love a handwritten letter.
