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I’m struggling. My mind searches for words to say but repeatedly comes up blank. My thumb rubs over the button of my pen and presses it down.
Click.
I press it again so that the inky point disappears back into its plastic hull.
Clack.
I continue this pattern, absently pushing the button up and down, up and down with my thumb.
Click, clack. Click, clack. Click, clack.
Ideas dart in and out of my head as quickly as the retreating pen point, as I try to settle on one that will work.
“Man, what do I do?” I say aloud to the wall of my room.
This is unlike me. I am the queen of letter writing. Well, I write a lot of letters anyway. Long ones too. Usually I’ll have composed a seven to ten page piece of correspondence before the envelope is licked and in the mailbox.
I’ve been asked before when hurrying to finish a letter before the mailman arrives or the post office closes, “Why write a letter when you could just e-mail them?”
To which I’ll respond, “Well, it’s just more fun, sometimes, to write letters.”
And it is. There’s something special and personal about getting away from a computer screen, grabbing a colorful pen and a sheet of stationary, and writing to your heart’s content.
But this time is different. This time I’m not writing to a fellow Christian, a believer who shares my values and beliefs. Today I’m writing to family members. Yep, family members who don’t know the Lord, who don’t understand what I mean when I say things like, “God spoke to me in an awesome way the other day!” They’ve never heard His voice, never felt His tugging on their heart – His urging them to let Him into their lives.
So what do I do?
“I know they won’t persecute me for my beliefs,” I say out loud again, “and I would still be unashamed of my relationship with the Lord if they did. But I’m not trying to impress them and I don’t want to push them away with phrases that they don’t understand. They simply don’t know what I’m talking about. They’ll read it because it’s from me, but they probably won’t think about it more deeply than, ‘Oh that’s sweet.’”
I glance up at the Scripture verses, quotes, and clippings taped to the cupboard door on my desk. My eyes rest on the one cut from a Voice of the Martyrs envelope, the black ink letters having been outlined by me with a turquoise gel pen, “GOD WILL USE YOU MIGHTILY.” I cut out the phrase earlier this year because it encouraged me. It reminds me that God will work through me in ways that I cannot even imagine if I am sold out completely to Him.
I speak aloud once more, but this time not to myself, “Lord, I want that phrase to be true of me. I don’t know what to say to reach them, and I don’t know if they’ll even listen to me, but please just let me be myself. I want to write to them the way I would to anyone else, and I pray that you will use the seeds of my letters to spring forth fruit in their hearts. Please ... use me.”
I pick up my purple gel pen again and press down the button. In my neat cursive handwriting I begin to write:
Dear Grandma and Grandpa,
You’ve been on my mind a lot recently so I thought I’d send you a little note. God has been doing amazing things in my life lately and I wanted to share them with you ...
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