Monday, August 31, 2015

Letters


    I love letters, and consider myself to be a fairly frequent letter writer. Growing up, I had an assortment of pen pals. I had a subscription to a girls magazine called Brio. Every so often they would have an application for a pen pal. You filled out the form and sent it in and they sent you the name of another girl who you could be pen pal friends with. I loved this idea and had several Brio pen pals, though they eventually all fizzled out.
     But my most consistent and faithful pen pal has always been my Grandpa K. Since I was young he would write me. Now of course this was a two way street and if I failed to write back the letters tended to stop. But if I would write back the letters kept coming. So, over the years our letters have ebbed and flowed, but it's always there just waiting for a new letter to keep the flow going. The past couple years I have worked harder at being a better letter writer, and I am glad I have. For the most part, I keep the letters I get, though when I was younger I think I got rid of a stack in a cleaning spurt, I wish I hadn't.

      The letters go back even farther too. The other day I was talking with Luke about how when I was really little and my family lived in Kenya, Grandpa still "wrote" us, but in a different form. He would take his tape recorder when he went out for drives and would record letters to us.
     Those cassettes crossed the ocean and found their way to our cinder block house on the side of a mountain in Africa. I remember listening to Grandpa's voice as my siblings and I went to bed. As I told My Love this he told me that I needed to get those because they are truly a treasure. So, I called my Mom up and she dug them out of the basement for me.
    Luke ordered a machine that will convert these into CDs so we can have digital copies of them. I am looking forward to listening to them again after all these years.
    Luke was right, what a treasure those tapes are, but so are the letters.  I have this beautiful inheritance from my Grandpa, a stack of letters and tapes filled with life's happenings, encouragement, and promises from Scripture which he frequently shares with me when I need it. I am blessed. 
Happy Monday.


“Letter writing can be seen as a gift because someone has taken his/her time to write and think and express love.”~ Soraya Diase Coffelt

1 comment:

  1. That is really cool to have the tapes from your Grandpa. Luke is right they are a treasure, your kids will love to hear them. I have saved most of the letters I have recieved. They hold special memories.
    ~Anna

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