Hello friends,
Can I say first off, thank you so much for reading this! It is my heart. Not the heart in my chest of course. Not the one that pumps blood into my veins, but more importantly, the one that pumps life into my soul. The one that makes life worth breathing. I ask you to please be patient and take your time. I know it looks so long but in the end, worth it. For all of us.
Three years ago, I began Hope Sent Prayer Card Ministry with one idea in mind – meeting someone right where they are, in their very own home, with a tangible expression of hope and love. The idea came to me as I sat at my desk at work and chatted with another administrative assistant on the phone. I knew her husband had passed months before and so I asked her how she was doing, how her Christmas was, if she was hanging in there.
I mean, I can’t imagine.
Christmas.
Without my sweet love. Without my comfort. Without the stealer of my covers at night.
My heart skipped when she answered quietly, “I still miss him so bad.”
What do you say? If she had been in front of me I would have hugged her. But she wasn’t and so I couldn’t and I just sat for a moment, speechless.
After we hung up, I got back to work but Alice would not leave my mind and so just minutes later I spun around in my chair and quickly wrote on a yellow sticky note “Send Alice a card”.
My whole life my mom has always been a sender of cards. Cards with confetti. Cards with bows. Cards that sparkled. And always always she wrote so much in them that the words turned sideways and upside down and before long trailed along the backside, a last wave goodbye. I inherited my mom’s love for cards and all they give to the person that opens them. I buy them everywhere. I save them for the right time, the perfect person, a moment of need.
And so began Hope Sent. Not just my words written, but the love of God mixed in, the Giver of Hope, the Bestower of Grace. It’s been almost three years now. And I am touched always by the prayer card requests that continue to come in.
People submit card requests for themselves, for their kids, their fathers, their mothers, their husbands, and their wives.
What do they want prayer for? Life.
The nit and the grit of it.
Deployment. War. Affairs. Drugs. Abuse. Salvation. Loss. Death. Cancer. Divorce. Miscarriage. Abandonment. Suicide. Grief. Incest. Alcohol. Depression. Self-esteem. Hope.
Or rather.
The loss of it.
There are times I cannot speak, I cannot catch my breath enough to get the words out; my heart in a fist.
But this. This is what Jesus came for isn’t it? For the broken and the hopeless. The weak and the forgotten. The lost and the left.
And so I pray. And I write.
And I have faith in God’s promise that is given in Isaiah 55:11,
So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
I have always dreamed of being a writer. For as long back as I can remember, I kept journals, wrote poetry, and then began a love affair with essays. It has been an outlet, an escape, an accountability, a diary of hope, longing, future. Dreaming is not an easy thing for me. Most of my life has been spent surviving it ... who has time for dreams when it’s all you can do to pay rent, put food on the table, fold the laundry, and read bedtime stories to your kids?
I tell you.
That’s the perfect time.
My dream? A book. I had a few ideas what this book would be about and I have started many first drafts. But God told me to STOP. WAIT.
Not
quite
yet.
And so I have waited. Sometimes patiently. Sometimes with my foot tapping.
It was driving to pick up my son from school, at the most random of unholy moments, in workout clothes and flip flops, teeth possibly not brushed yet, failing to rock a sloppy topknot, when God spoke to me,
“You should write a Hope Sent book.”
Three years. Three years I have lived Hope Sent Prayer Card Ministry. Three years with an abundance of volunteers, and sometimes only one. And not one time, EVER, have I considered a Hope Sent book. So I did what I usually do when God speaks to me… I asked Him if it was really Him,
And then I asked Him why.
Oh. My. Jesus.
You are so patient, patient, suffering long, for us.
For me.
Can I get an AMEN?!?!
Then it came. Thoughts. Not complete. Splatches of it. Here and then
there
and somehow God getting his point across and I just started bawling my eyes.
All of us, so many of us, suffering, and thinking we are so very alone but we are not, we are not alone, not even a little bit. Wouldn’t it just be awesome, I mean, wouldn’t it just be God-Awesome, to read someone else’s prayer, someone else’s pain and struggle and heartbreak, that sounds pretty darn close to yours and then read the prayer that was written over it and laid before the heart of God?!?! To see the words of hope in your hand, highlight them in neon yellow, underline them in blue, and then pray them for yourself? Share it with someone you know?
I think yes.
Yes it would be so very God-Awesome.
And so here we are. Here I am. Ready to write the book.
And you, yes my dear sweet loves, YOU, are going to help.
And we are going to rock the world with love. And hope. And the peace of God.
Together.
HOW IT WORKS
1.Spread the word.
2.Mail in your prayer letter. You don’t have to sign your name or give a real address. You don’t even have to tell me if you’re a boy or a girl or how many times you have turned 29. Be as anonymous as you want to be.
3.Or you can email it. And still be fairly anonymous.
4.Wait.
5.I write the book.
6.Then I ask God how we’re going to publish it. I’m sure He already knows. He also knows a control freak like me is still learning to walk by faith and not by sight.
SOME OTHER STUFF
1.You will not get a Hope Sent card back. This is for the book only.
2.You will not get your prayer letter back either. Sorry.
3.This is not through the church or any organization.
4.You don’t have to go to church to do this.
5.I hope some of you don’t.
6.Let it all hang out. Even if you think it may shock me to the bones, God’s got this.
7.I’m praying for at least 120. Why 120? That’s the number God gave me.
Thank you. I love you. Let’s do this.
EMAIL: hopesentministry@gmail.com
ADDRESS: P.O. Box 3648
Ramona, CA 92065
