It was 2001. My sister and I had just made the agonizing decision to place our mother in a nursing home.
Dementia was stealing a part of her each and every day, and she required round-the-clock care.
Sandwiched and stacked in my garage were what was left of 92 years of collecting and chronicling her life.
The boxes and spare furniture covered every square inch.
We spent hours going through those boxes—yearbooks, papers, newspaper articles, and family Bibles.
We laughed at old photos, vintage clothing, and scavenged through many a big brown envelope filled with our horrendous school day pictures, piano recital programs, report cards, and letters from camp—even a Christening gown and a Brownie Scout beanie from the 1950s.
Our mother was quite a packrat—she was also one who would not have traded the content of those boxes for anything money could buy—diamonds, furs, and mansions included.
As our sorting continued, we came across a bit of history we had never seen—a bundle of letters tied in ribbon—love letters our daddy wrote to her during their engagement and others a few years later during World War II. It was like finding a part of our mother we had never known—and yet had always known. The paper was brittle and yellowed. Daddy’s familiar flowing script made this find all the more precious to both of us. Somehow, I think a stack of e-mails would not have had the same effect.
That generation we call the “Greatest” were masters of handwritten and heartfelt correspondence. We could all take lessons. Little did my father know that in revealing his affection for his bride, he revealed much about himself—about his faith and his character.
I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor a few days after our discovery and read every letter again and again. Despite the fact that all the postmarks fell between 1938 and 1945, I could hear my father’s voice in every phrase. I felt as connected as ever to the parents who gave me life and more confident than ever that love, as surely as God’s word tells us again and again and again, never ends. And to think what seems like the strong and forever after love that my father had for my mother is just a weak replica of Christ’s love for His bride, the Church.
It’s not an original analogy to compare the Bible to a love letter. But the concept resonates with me in a particularly big way at the moment. For wisdom, direction and every small, as well as significant dilemma of life, our Father in heaven has provided His own up close and personal correspondence. Steeped in the most profound love story of all time and complete with roadmap to show us the way, His word is meant to keep us near while apart, and to insure that we never doubt His love for us.
There is a rather renegade and bold Presbyterian theologian I do love whose name is Steve Brown. He is the president of a ministry called Key Life. He has white hair and a very deep voice and when he speaks I just imagine that God himself would have a similar sounding voice! He always says that you can only love others to the degree that you have been loved, and once we start to wrap our minds around the truth that each of us has been profoundly loved by the God of the Universe, loving others becomes our nature.
So, you think about it. From God’s heart to your heart…you’ve got mail.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. -Lamentations 3:22.
