Write About Now

I’ve already written about the scolding note I received in response to a recent Buzz column, and the magazines that appear even though I never subscribe. (I now receive Fortune magazine, too, for no apparent reason. It’s like there’s a contest among publishers to send the periodical with the least relevance to my life. Next I’ll start getting Bowhunting World.)

Yesterday the mail-pattern-weirdness continued when I returned from Christmasing and found a two-page letter hand-addressed to me and signed by someone named Olu.

“I am a brother here in Nashville,” he writes. “My motivation for writing you today is simply to pray for you. I am a member of a prayer team and I’m inspired to pray for three people this month. I am glad you are one of them. God knows your every need, sees your circumstances and is aware of your every burden. Please let me pray for you and I believe God will surprise you.”

He then invited me to email him with my prayer needs, call him on a Sunday morning to pray together over the phone, or visit his church. “Once again, let me say that God loves you and whatever you are going through is temporary,” he concludes. “If you can pray, He will answer you for there is nothing too complicated for Him. God bless you. Olu.”

It’s a bit unnerving to receive this kind of letter at home from a stranger, and I have no plans to contact the guy, but something about the note made me smile. It was well-written, it asked for nothing, and I’ll take all the prayer I can get. Besides, God really might surprise me. If not, the mail probably will.