An Old Letter

Yesterday, I was reminded of something that I had read in a book a long time ago.  I thought that I might still own the book so I moved toward my bookshelf to see if I could find it and more importantly find the passage, in the book, that I was trying to fully remember.  I fumbled through a bunch of different titles until I finally found it.  As I opened the book to try and locate the section that I vaguely remembered but was trying to refresh my knowledge of, a hand written note fell out from one of the pages and landed on the floor near my foot.  I bent over to pick up the note that was aged with color and texture.  As I unfolded the tight creases of the paper, I read the old words from a very old friend.

As I read the note, I remembered having read the words before, even though they seemed somewhat new since it had been so long from the last time I had seen them.  The note went all the way back to my high school days.  The friend that wrote the note is someone that I haven’t seen or talked to since those high school days.  I am not going to divulge exactly how long ago those days were but it’s been a long while.

As you might imagine, the memories flooded back with the sight of that persons name and their unbelievable words on the paper.

I am not one who journals.  But today I realized the value of the art.  I got to experience the awesome power of an encouraging word….again.  I got to experience the fun of feeling the power of those words, after long forgetting them and their original impact on my life.

It’s good to look back and see where we have come from.  It’s good to see how things have changed and how much progress and good has happened.  Anybody can remember the hard times of life but we need to be regularly reminded of the good things that have happened and the good things that other people see in us and have said about us in midst of those tougher times.

I tucked the note back in the same book, almost hoping I would soon forget about it again.  I hope that as I might forget about the note one more time, I might also stumble upon those words in a few more years from now with the same intrigue, surprise, and refreshing reminder.