Writing on the Wall

I spent the afternoon at my parents' house today. They still live in the same house I grew up in, but it hardly feels the same. They have been asking me for months to come and go through some of my old stuff to see what I want to keep and what I want to give away, but I have been a slacker up until now.

You never know what you'll find when cleaning up the past, but today I found a blessing... As I was going through box upon box of old memories, I stumbled upon a shoe box full of old scraps of paper. Many of them had ads for frat parties or other UofL campus activities on them. That in itself was entertaining to read; however, on the other side of each scrap was the important part, notes of encouragement written by friends.

Each of these notes had been posted on my wall... no, not the wall on Facebook... the Encouragement Wall at the Baptist Student Union (BSU, now BCM) at UofL. The Encouragement Wall was simply a bulletin board covered in envelopes. If you wanted to receive encouragement all you had to do was put your name on an envelope and stick it on the wall; however, it came with the understanding that you would also encourage others. All you had to do was write someone a note on a scrap of paper put it in their envelope.

I miss the art of handwritten notes; there is just something more personal about them. Maybe it's that they take more time and effort. Maybe it's reading the message it the writer's own handwriting. I'm not sure what it is, but while it is nice to have technology now to maintain more distant relationships it seems to have come at the cost of close personal relationships.

The shoebox I found today probably contained just about every note that ever entered my encouragement envelope. I went through and read them all before writing this and was blessed all over again. These words of encouragement written 7-9 years ago were still encouraging to me today!

For those of you who are reading this on Facebook... I have tagged each one of you that I found a note of encouragement from today. Thank you so much, your kind words have brightened my day!