And our arguments get shortened too…IMHO (In My Honest Opinion) and FWIW (For What It’s Worth).

But what do we achieve by shortening the things we mean to say or cutting back on what we share?

Are we doing it to reduce the amount of love we want to show one another? And how does that feel?

Or are we doing it to save time so that we can get on with something more important?  And what does that say?

And then there’s the decoding the messages and the understanding of language that goes into it too!

A family member once said ‘You dad has really hurt his leg. Will be in touch. LOL.’ WE see Laugh out loud. THEY meant lots of love.

And during these times some of us have learnt to use zoom instead of the phone.

We’ve tried the phone instead of email.

And a card instead of visiting.

And what can we learn from these new experiences and skills. What will we do differently when the easing starts?

Will we still call friends and loved ones? Will we still check on neighbours? Will we still share cups of flour or sachets of yeast!

Our challenge I suppose it to challenge ourselves to not shorten our words or speed up our time.

Our show of love should be fuller and more real rather than concise and clipped short.

In the Bible – the family tree from Abraham to David and David to Jesus are not shortened.

David’s Psalms are not missing a verse and Paul’s letters still have To and From and With all my Love and Prayers to finish off.

So who will you next be writing too. Carving out proper time to call. Choosing to call in rather than texting a Hi!

God does not send us a depot card because we missed His Son the first time he came.

He sends the Holy Spirit to wait until we’re ready to receive Him.

We are never too busy to hear that God loves us more than we could ever know. 

Not because of what we do or how much we know but because we are His children and He is our God. Now let’s tell the world!