| Do This First… |
Before you read this chapter, I have a task for you. At the top of this page, list the top ten things Jesus Christ has given you. Just take one minute to write the very first things that come to your mind. Please do not read any further until you have this list completed.
My middle child shipped out to be a Marine Corps officer at the ripe young age of 27. He arrived at Quantico Base on a Friday at which point he and the other officer candidates handed over all electronics…all of them. They knew this was coming. They were warned prior to arrival that for three weeks they would have no contact with the outside world except through letters delivered the old fashioned way via the USPS.
I don’t think my son has been without access to a cell phone and/or email since before the turn of the century. And I would imagine some of the younger Marine officer candidates couldn’t even remember a time when they were without electronic connections. Had they ever written a letter with paper and ink, placed it in an envelope with mailing and return address, plunked a stamp on it, and then walked it to the mailbox? Probably not, but on their second day, each officer candidate was given paper, pen, and envelopes and told to write home.
Our son wrote to his wife, his parents, his siblings, and his grandparents in that order. He was a good boy! Now, we couldn’t write back until we got these letters telling us his exact address, and for some reason, it took seven days for any of us to get his letters. Then it took five days for him to get ours. By this point, it’s been almost two weeks since he has had any communication with family. Mail call was so hard when there were no letters for him.
In today’s texting world, two weeks seemed like a lifetime to our son and his morale slipped into a pretty deep cavern. He had no outside world contact…none. His whole world was his rack mates and the officers shaping him into a Marine!
Eventually, he received all our letters, usually in bunches. His wife wrote every day since he left and was just waiting for his first letter. He shared with us how he clung to every word of every letter when her stack was placed in his hands. I can only imagine the salve her words provided. He would write back as he could (2:00AM by flashlight), but now that we had the exact address, we made sure he had a letter from one of us every day. He had little time to read them so we kept them short.
After those first three weeks, he got his cell phone back and during liberty, he could make calls. A friend let him borrow his laptop and he Skyped his wife. (That sounds bad, but it wasn’t…trust me!) He was worn…dejected…exhausted and wasn’t sure he could make it. But after talking with his wife for many hours and to us for not quite that long, he decided to do one more week. It was a critical week. Again, he would be without any direct communication with those he cared about. His only connection would be through handwritten letters. We wrote furiously and prayed a lot!
Our letters kept going out, often two or three a day. We wanted him to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we knew he could do it, that God would provide, and that we loved him so much! The next call came the following weekend. It wasn’t the same man on the other end of the line. He was still exhausted and still trying to catch up all the time, but he was hopeful and determined to finish out the ten weeks. After we hung up, I cried because he said, “If it wasn’t for everyone’s letters, I know I would have requested to be sent back home.”
Our son did graduate and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps! He attended Basic School where he said, “They try to kill us every day” and he wasn’t talking about the enemy. Then he attended Infantry Officer Training School and one long year later, he was shipped to his first assignment.
All of this to prepare him to be a leader in combat against some of the worst enemies the United States has ever faced. He was and is ready to serve his God, his fellow man, and his country. A few short letters, written by hand and with a lot of love, were all that stood between wearing the classic dress blues or going home in khakis and a polo shirt.
Discussion
Have you physically written a letter in the past week, the past month, the past year? Here is a challenge. Write a physical letter on an actual sheet of paper or stationary or a card to someone in your circle of influence. Put it in an envelope, write the address of the person whom you wrote to on the envelop with your return address and put a stamp on the letter. Then Mail It! You will be amazed the encouragement your recipient of the written letter will receive and just how blessed you will both feel!
One Another Living 