When Words really ARE enough...

For all of my days, I have had this love affair with words... how they can affect us, stretch us, and grow us. How they can stir us up and cause All. The. Feelings. to rise to the surface and sink down deep, all at the same time!  

For all of my life, I have been a list-maker, journal-keeper, note-taker, letter-mailer, ...a blogger of sorts, before there ever was such a thing!

Stacks & Stacks of lovely Dayspring Cards      

I remember passing notes in school, long before there was an option of texting. I remember sending letters in the mail with such excitement to have it travel for me and say what I really wanted to say, across miles and states... trusting the words to connect hearts through space and time.

Words and encouragement and love spilled out of me from the beginning.  It's part of how He made me. (It doesn't hurt that my Love Language is Words of Affirmation, so I speak it fluently!)  However I never really knew that it could be a ministry - this stringing together words to uplift and uphold... this offering my heart mixed with His.  


Sometimes I would feel almost helpless, unable to be the answer to what was asked or to provide the tangible for what was needed... but I would pull out my notecards, and grab a pen... I'd pour out my prayers and my hopes and send it off in the mail, trusting that sometimes words really are enough! Not in themselves, not always... but they hold the power to unleash faith and unlock hope that has been for too long hidden away.  Often I have found in my own life that through the gift of words, my heart has been healed and only then does the tangible help come into view.

It was long before I knew that prophesy was a thing or that I could hear from God that I began randomly sending cards or letters to people whom the Lord would lay on my heart.  I would simply write out what I had been praying or what Scripture I had been reading when I had thought of them.  It felt a lot like just me... but it turns out it was a partnering with the Spirit to pour out love and blessing.  It felt natural to me and so I discounted it as nothing spiritual.  But that mindset began to shift when I ran into a couple of people at a conference and they mentioned how much the cards I had sent had ministered to them.

"Nice!" I thought... but then they opened their Bible or pulled it out of their journal.  They had been carrying it with them, in heart and hand... and it was giving them courage and hope and a reminder that even when I could have no way of knowing what they were facing, God knew... God knew and He sent words to build up, to break through, to bless.

So I began to see this little stack of stationary and notecards in the corner as my office, and the pen in hand was His heart being spilled out on a page for someone across the pew, across town, or across oceans.

I am blessed that I have received my fare share of love notes over the years as well. And because Words of Affirmation is my jam, I gather them up and collect them in boxes... looking over them from time to time, allowing Him to remind me of how much I am loved... by Him, and by others.

There is power in the written word... and when I asked several years ago for the Lord to give me my purpose in a clear and simple way... "Talk to me like I'm twelve." I said, He did.  He said, "This is why I created you... this is your Call and your Purpose: Speak Life. Be Love. Shine On."  

So I attempt to do that every day... to do it in my in real life everyday hours, as well as online and through cards and letters (and emails and texts, but really - who doesn't love a little old school Happy Mail, right?)

I figure if I am attempting to do this simple call every day - I can't possibly miss my big picture destiny, as long as I am walking it out little by little, card by card, every day!

So my sweet friend Kaitlyn had this amazing idea in the midst of a twitter party and it's because she gets it - the power of our words and how there is life and death in our tongues (and pens) and my how much we all need a little more life! She gets that.  She's lived it out loud and so she decided to organize this 'list'.  We call it #fmfpartysnailmail because it stemmed from an evening on twitter with the #fmfparty gals who gather brave and write for five minutes flat on Fridays!  We are now in Round 3 and it is amazing the number of women who have signed up to not only receive a card in the mail each week... trusting that God will speak to them through a (once-) stranger (-now-friend!) but who have signed up to partner with God and give the encouragement and love and hope that is needed to a woman they have most likely never met!

No matter if you are involved in #fmfpartysnailmail or not - you too can partner with God and Speak Life, Be Love, Shine On.  

It may feel a lot like just you, but trust me, God will speak and love and shine!

I am linking up with Kaitlyn today on the power of The Written Word
(plus there's a Giveaway, too!)