It’s another rainy June morning. I watch the rain dripping from the roof like the silvery fringe on a shawl;  the  rain chain overflows  with  rivulets of water to puddle below.   I want to get outside into the gardens but it’s too muddy and wet to do anything. So I content  myself with  being inside, admiring the scented lilacs which have grown thick and lush. I’m astonished at how  many shades of green God  creates in the pine trees and underbrush. Additionally, I am reminded that this wet, rainy June is not  unusual. My journal  from last year confirms  a June just as cool and damp as this one and I recall one year when it rained excessively in the spring, so much that  moss grew  in some of the flowers baskets. At least I don’t have to water the gardens today or tomorrow.

A few days ago on a day like this I busied myself cleaning out a desk drawer cluttered with papers, pens, and the flotsam and jetsam I accumulate. I found a stack of old greeting cards rubber banded together, ones I didn’t have the heart to throw out because they were too pretty and because they were from friends and family who are now on the other side of eternity. I found several from my mother Elisabeth who always sent special cards for special occasions. She never just dashed off her signature but filled  every available space in her tiny German handwriting with news about the family, with words of love, advice and encouragement. In the card I held, she mentioned my  great need of patience. Did she mean I shouldn’t be so  impatient with others? Or was it a mother’s prayer for a daughter to receive God’s infinite, patient help? Knowing my mother, she meant both. I still can’t  throw her cards away.

To this day, I love getting an actual card or letter in the mail from someone near or far away.  There is something special about tearing open an envelope and discovering the personal surprise inside. I have a friend who thoughtfully remembers all holidays and my birthdays with a card. She does the same for everyone in her large circle of friends.  Another friend makes beautiful hand crafted cards. I wouldn’t dream of tossing them away.   Both of my daughters are card senders. (My brother and son are happy with a short  text.)  I keep the special ones because they’re physical, personal connections   which remind me that I am remembered and loved by others.  My mother is gone, but her words written long ago still speak.

 In this too busy, too fast moving and too complex world, sending letters and cards has gone the way of  typewriters. .  Most of the time a quick text from the phone while we’re on the run to somewhere really important suffices. I plead guilty as charged and use texts far too often because it’s more convenient and quick and I don’t have to say very much. Why sometimes even a smiley face or heart icon will do. They’re universal symbols, right? Maybe, but they’re so overused, they’ve become meaningless. We use   baby talk when we have entire dictionaries in our heads.

When I pray, I wonder how I come across to God? How does He regard me as I speak?  How does He hear my words? As a thoughtful love letter, filled with praise and honor and glory for Him? Or as  quickie mental texts cobbled together  with worn out phrases I rattle off as I go about the next thing? 

Our Father has things to say to us. Better than a desk full of greeting cards, God gave us the Bible as His love letter to reveals His Spirit and Name,  to guide us in every possible situation and to draw us into communication with Him.  There are endless surprises and  eternal revelations within the covers of His Word/Letters/Book.  He speaks to us from the beginning to the end of time and I can hear His voice as clearly as I could hear my mother’s. Unlike my stack of old, precious  cards which one day will be thrown away, God’s Word never ceases, never ends, never fails.  His Word speaks  volumes into our hearts.  God does not text nor will He  dash off  cute little icons because He never hurries or rushes to speak.  How then shall we respond to such a marvelous gift from the One waiting for us to come nigh?  Hopefully,  we emulate the prophet Samuel  who made himself available wholeheartedly to hear, to listen and to respond to  God.

The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” 1. Samuel 3:10.

 Nothing less will do than the most special card we can inscribe with honest, grateful, adoring words flowing from us to Him.