Tuesdays, my dear friend Ann Voskamp and I are writing a series of letters about loving Jesus and others with our words. We’d love to hear your heart too. Will you join us?
D
earest Holley …
Sparrows scatter across the snow here.
Do the winds blow hard where you are?
They say that birds don’t sing in winter. There are seasons when it’s hard to find words.
Because no matter what anyone says, words aren’t cheap.
Words, if they’re real words, must incarnate. Take on skin. That comes at a price. About the cost of a sliver of soul. Or nail-pierced hands.
Uttering even one word, a singular yes, to a mate, a child, a neighbor, lays down a bit of your beautiful self.
Or the whisper of just a sorry can seem exorbitant — but it’s the best way to spend grace.
Frost in the corners of the window panes here tonight, Holley. I wonder where the sparrows huddle as the mercury drops. I take solace in this — God’s never failed yet to send spring. Words will make a way.
Chickadees! They sing in snow.
Singing into the wind, believing. Because really, is there a wind that can ever carry a song off course?
The words we speak, the words we write, the words we serve our little worlds with, they are meant to only be echoes of the Word.
Meant to make Him smile. Meant to make a way back to their source, the Word God who can’t stop writing His heart.
What shapes the way we speak, forms the way we use our words, need only be the Word Himself.
Putting away the papers and books and pencils here tonight, I thought of that, Holley —-
What if all our words were just birdsong free, sung for God alone?
All’s grace,
