My mother taught me to be a letter writer. She and her mother, my grandmother, wrote letters back and forth to their relatives in Norway for decades. Mom was a great believer in sending thank you notes, birthday notes, and notes when you knew someone was having a hard time. And in almost every letter she wrote, my mother told you something wonderful about yourself.
What if the entirety of the gospel is also a letter, written to each of us, inviting us to be transformed by God’s love and affection for us? Written, like a letter by my mother, to tell us something about how wonderful we are, but also to tell us what God expects us to do – to resist injustice, to choose compassion and sacrifice, to truly affect the lives of others – and beyond even that, to be transformed ourselves?
This message is excerpted from “Letters and the gospel” by Heidi Haverkamp in the June 2021 Gather magazine.
If you enjoy this resource, Donate Now.