The Letter

When I was in my early 20’s I used to eagerly visit the mailbox every day looking for a letter from my favorite gal, who later became my wife. We lived 120 miles apart and it was before the age of email and cell phone, so it was a special treat to open the mailbox and smell the fragrance of her perfume on the envelope.

Eagerly I would open the letter and spend the next few minutes pouring over her letter. As our relationship grew the greeting went from Hi, to dear, to dearest and the endings of the letters changed from bye, to sincerely, to love always.

In ancient times letters traveled from person to person and from church to church. Often a letter would be carried over great distances by one person, a trusted friend or a servant, to be given directly to the hands of the recipient. One such…