I woke up excited to remember that today is Friday. Not only because it means the beginning of our weekend [since my husband is a pastor, he takes a day off to replace Sunday – and for him, it’s Friday], and the end of what’s felt like an unusually intense week, but also because it’s Five Minute Friday. Five minutes of writing unedited, prompted by a word and link-up hosted by Kate Motaung. It’s fun to simply write for five minutes without thinking too much about it, and it’s wonderful to read what others have written across the blog-world on the same topic.

So … here goes: “SEND”

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I remember when the only mail I opened was what came in a carefully addressed envelope, sometimes decorated with stickers, and always carefully written by virtue of the fact that it was a letter. Kristin wrote me after we met during my first campus visit of Wheaton College, and she answered my questions about college life as well as encouraged me in my high-school faith. She had artistic print and a beautiful way of addressing each envelope that made me feel like I was opening a personal work of art. (Which I was – it was created just for me.)

When my next-door best friend neighbor, Kristen Warnke, moved away when I was in third grade, we kept up correspondence via letters back and forth for years. She told me about her family vacation to Alaska – that it wasn’t all cold and icy as everyone imagined. Her addressed changed many times over the 10 years we wrote to one another because of her dad’s job. Mine changed once. But we always found each other. We were able to see each other in person perhaps once over all of that time … but the relationship stayed close because of the pen-and-ink bond between us.

I can’t help but think with nostalgia on those days, and wonder if in our electronic click-and-send culture of communicating via screens, we have lost something of great importance almost impossible to recover.

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