2020. At the mention of that year, what comes to the top of my mind is the lockdown. This is one collective history we share as humans who are living in the 21st century. Introverts or extroverts, we were all locked in our houses to ourselves and our families. Our resorts for connection were e-mail, zoom, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. For some of us, it was a good substitute for physical meetings; for others, it can never satisfy that inherent desire to want to connect with one another physically, that opportunity to hold and tell how much we care about each other. That year, I made an unusual commitment.
I made a commitment to send an SMS to every single contact on my phonebook list. That was crazy. I had never done that before. Over the years my contact list had grown; I think I had over 300 contacts, at the time I made the commitment. At N4 per SMS, I would spend over N1,200 to get across to every single person on my contact list. I made sure my SMS never exceeds a single page which costs just N4. The next thing to deal with, taking note of the cost, was to map out how I was going to reach out to the over 300 folks. Was I going to do that in a day? In a week?
Thankfully, contacts are arranged in alphabetical order, A to Z in my phonebook. I decided to send an SMS, written to every individual, to 20 persons per day, starting from the very first name to the very last one. Well, I cannot tell if I sent every single one of them but I can say that I sent to well over 60%. What was the result?
The majority did not reply. The few who did help me realise how we have a need for each other and how we can meet this need by simply sending out words of kindness to one another. I wrote barely up to five letters during that period. But those few words in an SMS had a great impact on the minds of the recipients, in a way I can only imagine based on their responses. Why this narrative?
There is a backstory to all this. Dad had always sent SMS to several contacts on his phone book list. He did this on every major holiday in the country and in the entire world. I watched him do this since I was a child. I was barely 6 years old when he taught me to write an SMS. Sometimes, I was responsible for writing the SMS he sends out. I was serving as a temporal secretary. He’d mark the names of not a few people and send the message. He cared less about if the recipients replied or not. What mattered most was that the message got across and the fellows are reminded that they matter.
In the first letter I received this year, the sender recommended this lovely song I can’t appreciate enough. I think you should check it out: Matter by for King and Country.
What is the point of all these? This weekend, Christians all over the world, reflect on a very important moment in the history of mankind. That time when the Son of God, Jesus accomplished the purpose for his coming into the earth: His death and resurrection, which brings about the salvation of anyone who believes in Him so. This is the core of the Christian faith. This is the lens through which a Christian defines Love: “not that we loved God, but He Loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins” (1 John 4:10); how God so Loved the world by sending His only begotten to die for our sins: John 3:16. To any believer in Christ Jesus, this is the climax of love. None other attains this height; how easy is it to die for even an upright man? But Jesus did so for every one of us, whether Jew or not (Romans 5:7-8).
I am a believer in Christ Jesus and I choose to tell of this Love that I am privileged to receive. It is the love that compels me to want to reach out to friends and foes, people I am finding hard to get along with and those I may have met only once but have their contact for some reason. I write an SMS or a letter to remind the recipient that he or she matters, and among the least, to me. How much to the one who created the universe and they inclusive? He gave His one and only son for us all; regardless of kindred or tribe, custom or tradition, tribe or clan. Jesus wrote a letter on the cross with his blood.
He commissioned anyone who has read, acknowledged, and received the letter to share it with others so that they may come to him and have life to the fullest.
“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age’” (Matthew 28:18-20, NIV).
This is me beckoning you to engage this message from the cross. All it takes is believing that it also has you in it. And you do this through prayer to God from wherever you are, born out of faith in this message. Believe it in your heart and say it out, wherever you may be. He listens from wherever. Distance is no barrier. Welcome to the climax of love!
God willing, I will be registering with the post office by next month and will be posting letters. I will tell you about the entire procedure in the next part of this series.
Read the previous parts:
At the Post Office 1: Read
At the Post Office 2: Read
At the Post Office 3: Read
At the Post Office 4: Read